The Fall of House Cousland (Dragon Age: Origins - Volume One)
by The Fly In The Ointment
Summary: In the seaport city of Highever, far from rumored unrest in the southern Wilds, young Liam Cousland believes his path is already set. Alongside his friend, Aeron Gilmore, he prepares for a life of civic duty; his only dream is a future with his lover, the elf Iona. But there are more than rumors in the Wilds. As the Fifth Blight dawns, tragedy and change loom over Liam's future...
1. In Peace, Vigilance

_..._

 _Well, well...what have we here?_

 _Ears that would hear? A mind that is open, perhaps? There are times I despair such things remain in our world, changed as it is._

 _And make no mistake, child, our world is ever changing: changed from what once it was, and now standing again upon the precipice of change._

 _Some fear the inevitable plummet into the abyss, as mortals are wont to do. Others struggle against it, believing in foolish pride that fragile man can contend against forces far beyond himself._

 _And why should they not? Old as I am, I have watched long enough to know that such beliefs are not,_ _always,_ _in error._

 _You, of course, are required to do nothing, least of all believe. Shut one's eyes tight, or open one's eyes wide, either way, one's a fool._

 _Whether you fear it, or fight it, or embrace it, change comes to all of us._

 _This tide of change begins its rise with the Fifth Blight. That is the tale I shall tell, if you will listen._

 _Perhaps you have heard tales of the Blight, and of the man they call the Hero of Ferelden? Who has not, after all? But the tale I tell does not begin with the one they call Hero, poor lad, for he is unaware as yet of the change that looms over him._

 _No, our story begins far to the south, in the tangles of the Korcari Wild, where things stir that have not stirred in a long time..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 **PROLOGUE:** In War, Victory. In Peace, Vigilance. In Death, Sacrifice.

 **As soon as Duncan saw the crows, he knew.**

From the ridge on which he stood, the carrion birds were barely visible, tiny black specks numbering well into the hundreds. They circled lazily, an enormous flock in the shape of a cyclone, narrowing to a singular point in the lush green forest. There was a village there, Duncan knew, nameless and unmapped, hidden from his view beneath the forest canopy. From the same village, heavy, black smoke rose in plumes, caught by the gentle wind and carried in dark streaks across a clear, midday sky. It was thick smoke, thick enough to tell Duncan that the fires still burned, and dark, too, dark enough to tell him that the fires fed on more than wood.

He knew, but still he had to see for himself.

...

 **Journeying from the ridge to the village took more than an hour.** Duncan and his companions, Grey Wardens all, were accustomed to rugged terrain, but even here at its northern edge, the Korcari Wilds proved out their reputation as unpassable. The terrain defied logic, seeming almost willfully hostile to travelers.

Deep ravines dropped from the forest floor into swamps warmed by sunlight only at high noon. Elsewhere, walls of rock jutted up from the ground, creating jagged stone barriers that could stretch for miles at a time. Whitewater rapids cut back and forth along the landscape's many contours, winding through ponds and bogs until they met larger rivers or fell away into the low, dark swamps. And where bogs and cliffs and valleys gave way, there was dense forest, thick with underbrush and shaded by trees that stretched up and up, until the trunks were lost in shadow.

That anyone could scratch out an existence in the Korcari Wilds struck Duncan as a minor miracle, and yet the notoriously hardy men and women of southern Ferelden not only lived in the Wilds but thrived, and had done so for hundreds of years. They carved out settlements and even small townships, used the rivers for travel and trade, and clung with strident patriotism to their Ferelden customs and identity even as they lived well beyond their country's southern border.

Two days earlier, Duncan had sought provisions at a riverside village, where men and women asked eagerly for news from the north and refused payment from Duncan and his fellow Wardens.

"We don't go taking coin from heroes," a swarthy merchant had said, chuckling and shaking his head, as though heroes often came through their village, and as though Duncan was one such hero, and as though he really ought to have known better.

Those villagers had guessed immediately that the Wardens were investigating rumors of darkspawn. No one in the village had seen any of the creatures, but of rumors there were plenty. The Chasind tribesmen who lived further south in the Wild had reported a skirmish with darkspawn raiders months earlier, an experience that left them so shaken they elected to move their tribe to new hunting grounds, far to the east. Not long after, tradesmen from nearby settlements had begun to report unearthly sounds in the night and hunters who never returned; more recently, settlements further south had simply gone silent, sending no traders for weeks.

The villagers brushed away these omens as the mundane perils of living in the Wilds, and noted with optimism that all the bad news came from deeper in the Wilds, where swamps stretched unbroken and fog covered everything, day and night, regardless of the season. Here at the northern edge of the Wilds, the fog hung close to the ground, usually no higher than a man's knees. At higher elevations, on the ridges and hills, it disappeared entirely on sunny days.

But the big merchant told Duncan that even here, in the north, sometimes the deeper fog would rise, and that was when they locked the village gates and bolted their home's doors. Creatures moved in that fog, the merchant said: witches or wildlings or werewolves, depending on who was telling the stories.

At dusk, after they left the village traveling south, that deep fog had risen, and Duncan had known something evil stirred within. Something worse than the monsters in the merchant's tales.

In the night, he felt the dark song swell in his chest: the horrid, haunting, beautiful calling that was the gift and the curse of all Grey Wardens. The music infected his dreams, and when he woke this morning he was drenched in sweat. As they broke camp in the dawn light, Duncan could tell from their grim faces that each of his five companions had felt the calling as well, though for the newer Wardens it would have been less intense, and their grasp on its meaning less clear.

To Duncan, however, the meaning was unmistakable. Something terrible had happened in the night, or was still happening perhaps. Something that had brought many of the darkspawn up from the caves and recesses beneath the earth, out of the deep roads, and sated the creature's bloodlust. What exactly, and where, he couldn't be sure, so they continued south, pushing on to the next village, following the merchant's directions.

They spotted the crows at mid-afternoon, and as soon as Duncan saw the crows, he knew.

...

 **They found the first bodies hanging from low branches just outside the village.** Six small children, some missing limbs or showing other wounds, but all of them likely alive when the nooses were fitted.

"Maker..."

The whisper – a prayer or curse Duncan couldn't tell – came from the youngest of the Wardens. The youth, Desmond, was from Orlais, the son of a wealthy merchant no less, and was only a few years into his service with the Order. It was possible he never seen the aftermath of a darkspawn raid.

Duncan held his longsword ready in one hand, but put his other on the young man's shoulder. It was the only comfort he could offer.

"There will be worse ahead," Duncan told him.

And there was.

...

 **The men and the older boys, and some of the women too, had chosen to fight.** They made their stand just inside a small gate in the stockade that surrounded most of the village. However valiant, the defense was hopeless from the start. Darkspawn had simply clambered over the stockades all around, and overwhelmed the desperate resistance. They had fought to the last, but even so, it would been over in a matter of seconds, Duncan guessed.

The darkspawn left the defender's bodies where they fell, many still clutching weapons and tools. In the midst of the human carnage Duncan could see splashes of black blood along with red. Duncan knelt briefly, inspecting a longsword that lay beside the body of a large, well-muscled man, likely the last of the defenders to fall. The blade was darkened with ichor and chipped in several places.

At least a few of the darkspawn had been killed, probably by this sword. But where the beasts' bodies should have lain there were only blood stains on bent grass and gouges in the dirt. The darkspawn had dragged away their own fallen.

If this had been an ordinary raid, a random outburst of darkspawn violence, the creatures would have left their dead behind, alongside the villagers. Removal of the bodies was too sophisticated, too purposeful. This alone was evidence the massacre had been orchestrated by a higher intelligence. It could be the work of an emissary, a demon wearing the twisted skin of a darkspawn. Or it could be a sign of something worse yet.

Duncan looked over to his nearest companion, a bald dwarf with a weathered face half-covered by blocky, dark tattoos. The dwarf's name was Korith, and besides Duncan, he was among the most senior of the Wardens stationed in Ferelden. He could read the signs as well as Duncan, and nodded grimly.

Behind them, Desmond began to weep quietly, staring slack-jawed into the village square. Duncan turned to see that tears streaked the young man's face, falling from his cheeks and running down his breastplate.

There had been about a dozen houses inside the stockade, all of them large and some with a second story. Half had burnt to the ground, the embers still smoldering. In the tradition of Ferelden peasantry, each house would have held several generations of extended family.

"How many, you think?" Korith asked quietly.

"At least a hundred and twenty, maybe as many as a hundred and fifty," Duncan replied.

"Twenty here, or about that," Korith said, and then pointed at the village square. "And at least forty there."

Bodies had been dragged and piled in the square, then drenched in oil and put to torch. The oily smoke still rose into blue sky. All were dead before the fire started, Duncan guessed, as they were stacked too neatly. A small mercy. Others lay where they had been struck down, and Duncan suspected some perished in the burnt houses. Still others had been hacked to pieces, their heads mounted on pikes in a loose circle around the fire, their limbs scattered garishly or left on the remaining fences and window mantles.

"Another forty scattered around, maybe?" Duncan suggested.

"There'll be others strung up outside the stockade, I'd wager. More than just the kids we found. Could account for all of them, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Duncan said reluctantly. "Even if twice that number are hanging out there, there still aren't any women here. There's grandmothers, girls," he said, gesturing at individual bodies, "but no women."

"I saw two or three back at the gate," Korith said, but he was nodding. "Not enough."

They stood quietly, studying the carnage with practiced eyes, until audible sobs began to rack Desmond's body. He was on his knees now, his sword laid on the ground in front of him, rocking forward and back. He knelt before a fencepost, to which a little girl had been tied. Her head hung forward limply, her torso pinned to the post by thick arrows. A homemade doll lay on the ground before her, soaked with blood.

Not content to leave anything unsullied, the darkspawn had slit open the belly of the doll as well.

Duncan sheathed his sword and knelt beside the young man, silent as Desmond wept, the sun beating down on the back of his neck, a gentle breeze carrying stench of burning flesh.

Once, Duncan had felt the same revulsion Desmond felt now. Cried the same tears. Asked the same pointless questions. And when Duncan had first encountered this monstrous handiwork, he was already a veteran of the Order, having fought the creatures in a dozen skirmishes; and before the Order, he had lived a harder life than Desmond, and was better acquainted with the world's callous disregard for human life. Even still, it had rocked Duncan to his core, the nightmares following him for months. So he was not without sympathy.

"Why?" Desmond asked at last, eyes still wet as he looked to Duncan beseechingly. "I knew they killed, but...why like this?"

Duncan drew in a long, measured breath before answering. "I don't know what drives them to cruelty," he said, honestly. "Perhaps the call of the Old Gods demands it, or perhaps it's simply their nature. We don't know."

Grief and horror began to drain from the young man's eyes, clouded over with a dark emptiness that Duncan had seen before. He gripped Desmond's shoulder suddenly and roughly.

"All we know - all we need to know - is that it they are evil, and that all other evil pales beside them. Do you understand?"

There was no response, and Desmond did not look directly at Duncan now, his eyes wandering over Duncan's shoulder, his gaze unfocused. He was sinking into shock, letting the horror choke him. This was something Duncan could not permit.

He shook the young man again, harder this time. "Do you understand now? _This_ is why we take our vows."

This horror must be turned to a purpose. Indeed, coming face to face with the darkspawn's depravity was tool in the molding of any Grey Warden. The horror must be turned to anger, to steeled resolve, to a truer understanding of the Order's purpose. "Look around you," Duncan insisted. " _This_ is why we serve. _This_ is what we sacrifice to prevent. _Look!_ "

Reluctantly, Desmond focused again, slowly turned his head, eyes slipping over the bloody masterpiece of unchecked, deliberate cruelty.

Quieter now, Duncan asked again: "Do you understand?"

Desmond's eyes found Duncan's, and they held the answer.

"You do," Duncan said softly, and Desmond nodded.

...

 **The Chantry taught that the hubris of men** **brought darkspawn into the world** : the first of the darkspawn were said to have been idolatrous mages, cursed by the Maker for trying to overthrow heaven itself.

Like most Wardens, Duncan was religious, and counted himself among the Chantry's faithful, but he found this particular teaching difficult to accept. The darkspawn were a swarm, a living, breathing embodiment of primal evil, and Duncan could not fathom how such a scourge could truly be just punishment for the heresy of a few, no matter how grave the trespass. On the other hand, it was hardly Duncan's place to question the Maker, and if the darkspawn were truly a punishment for all mankind, then Duncan supposed he had seen enough of human depravity to recognize that the sins of man might cry out for divine retribution. Besides, if the Order itself had found an alternate explanation for the darkspawn, he had never heard it.

Not that their origins mattered. Whether cast out of heaven by a vengeful God, or spit up from the depths of the earth by some whim of uncaring nature, it changed nothing now, and it had changed nothing a millennia ago, when the first darkspawn swarmed across the land, a Blight, unstoppable and relentless.

That First Blight lasted more than two hundred years, until it must have seemed that all the nations of Thedas would be consumed by the darkspawn. The dwarven kingdoms were the first to fall, destroyed almost entirely, driving the dwarves themselves to the brink of extinction. The Tevinter Imperium was reduced to a shell of its former glory. Countless other cultures were swallowed in the Blights, and perhaps whole races as well, their names lost to history. Few records remained from that time, now more than a millennia past, and neither the Chant of Light nor the Chantry's historians could offer more than the barest of details.

The Order of the Grey Wardens emerged at some point during that time, when hope must have been all but lost, founded by men and women from every race and every nation, all of them veterans of the endless war against the darkspawn. The first Wardens sacrificed everything to stem the tide of darkness, and prevailed.

Twelve centuries had passed since the First Blight, and the darkspawn rose three more times, and three more times the Grey Wardens beat them back. And after every Blight, Thedas healed, and the devastation faded into the pages of history, and the darkspawn retreated to the deep roads and the fringes of civilization, and many who called the Wardens heroes forgot.

The last Blight, the Fourth, was now four hundred years past, long faded from the memories of most men. And still Wardens like Duncan and Korith and Desmond kept the lonely vigil, hunting the few darkspawn who they emerged from the shadows, watching for the signs of another Blight, warning that one must come, upholding the vows of those who had come before.

...

" **In War, Victory,"** Desmond whispered the first of the vows, his voice tremulous.

"In Peace, Vigilance." Duncan and Korith spoke the vows with him, and Desmond's voice grew in confidence.

"In Death, Sacrifice."

Then Desmond stood. Tears still streaked his face, but his mouth was set firmly and when he lifted his sword from the ground, he did so with a firm hand.

"I understand, Commander," he said. He crossed his forearms, so that his clenched fists touched the opposite shoulder, and gave a short bow – a Ferelden gesture of respect – and when he rose, his eyes were hard. "Thank you, ser."

Duncan shook his head, pleased but also saddened by the change in Desmond. "You owe me no thanks. Now go and see to the bodies."

Desmond stepped away and began to move through the village with the other Wardens, closing eyes and whispering the Chantry's Blessing of the Last Rites. The bodies would be moved to the pyre in the center of the village, blessed again, and then set alight, denying the crows their feast. Wardens could not afford sentiment, and in other circumstances Duncan would have left the fallen untouched, but his own work in the village was not yet finished, and there was no harm in allowing Desmond and the others the comfort of ritual respect.

The village had been built on the slope of a hill that rose from the tree line to what looked like the edge of a cliff. The remains of a single windmill smoldered near the edge, and Duncan could see shapes strewn on the ground there, probably more of the dead. He beckoned for Korith to follow, and began to walk toward the mill.

The music of the calling had been quieter today, a slow buzzing compared to last night's crescendo, but since arriving at the village, a few isolated, discordant notes had begun to stand out. Not all of the darkspawn were gone from the village.

"Two or three nearby, I think," Duncan said to Korith as they passed the last of the houses and the climb became steeper.

"Your guess is as good as mine. A lot less than a raiding party, anyway. Why leave some behind, though?"

"A lookout, maybe," Duncan suggested. "Maybe they knew we were coming."

"Now there's a cheerful thought," Korith muttered.

Although Grey Wardens' connection to the darkspawn through the song flowed both directions, most of the beasts seemed incapable of correctly interpreting the music. If the band that slaughtered the village were led by an emissary, however, or if Duncan's most dire suspicions proved out, then anything was possible.

They reached the crest of the hill, which did indeed give way to a cliff. The windmill sat right at the cliff's edge, and a sturdy wooden deck had been built out over empty space. A winch on the porch connected to a system of pulleys and buckets, which dropped down about thirty yards through the scaffolding. A wide river that had been partially dammed at the base of the cliff, and a ladder had been built as well, accessible through a trapdoor in the porch.

The bodies Duncan had seen from below had fallen roughly in a line, leading from the hill up to the base of the mill, and then onto the porch. It stood to reason that some of the villagers would try to escape this way. Given the trapdoor to the ladder remained propped open, some might even have gotten away in time.

Not all the bodies there belonged to villagers, however. Four men had fallen defending the ladder, but unlike the villagers at the gate, these men were soldiers. They wore helmets, heavy marching boots, and leather breastplates over chain mail, and metal skirts hung over traditional, un-patterned Ferelden kilts. Round wooden shields, reinforced with hard steel, and bloodstained swords lay next to the bodies.

Duncan knelt beside the nearest soldier, whose upturned face had been ravaged by the crows, and rolled the body. The sigil of the Ferelden monarchy, a stylized Mabari hound, was emblazoned on the back of the armor.

"King's men," Korith said, resting his axe on the wooden slats beside the trapdoor. "Pretty far south, aren't they?"

Patrols were indeed rare so far south of the border.

Standing, Duncan walked to the edge of the porch and looked over. Near the bottom of the ladder, the burnt husks of two boats were still tied to a small dock. Two more of the king's men were dead on the dock, and the bodies of several villagers bobbed in the water. No one had escaped, then.

And escape might never have been the goal, Duncan thought. In an evacuation, a soldier's duty would have been to make their stand at the gate while families fled, and these men were no cowards: they had fought hard to hold the ladder, not died in a scramble to be the first down its rungs. If anything, Duncan guessed, the villagers at the gate had fought to buy time for the patrol to reach the river and carry a warning north.

Preoccupied as he was, Duncan might have missed the sound of metal boots approaching from behind. The discordant notes had grown sharper, however, and Duncan was on alert. Three darkspawn, moving slowly around the side of the mill, treading lightly on the grass.

He glanced sidelong at Korith, and saw the dwarf was aware too, his big hands tightening on the pommel of his axe.

When the darkspawn had closed to within a few yards, the creatures broke into a sprint, apparently believing they had surprised the Wardens.

Duncan rolled to his left, and as he came to his feet drew two blades: one a long dagger carried in his left hand, the other his longsword. The dagger he raised to a high guard, and at the same moment, he lashed out with the longsword at the nearest creature.

It was one of the taller breed of darkspawn, called hurlocks, and shared the height, build and posture of a tall man. Like the rest of its kind, the creature's skin was dark grey, and dry, and looked as though it had been pulled tight across a leering skull. Where a nose should have been, there were only slits, and its lipless mouth kept sharp teeth always on display.

As Duncan's sword flew toward its throat, the beast's eyes registered something like surprise. It tried too late slow its charge: the sword pierced its neck clean through, and Duncan ripped the blade sideways, arcing blood across the grass as the hurlock tripped forward and then smashed to the ground dead.

Nearby, Korith had spun in place as Duncan rolled, his axe held out and spinning with him in a defensive arc that the second hurlock barely avoided. They squared off, the hurlock holding a crude mace in high guard, Korith with his axe in both hands now.

There was no time for Duncan to watch. The third hurlock bore down at a full sprint, a jagged blade held above its head, already beginning to bring it down for a strike.

Duncan sidestepped left, and parried, and used the force of the blow as it struck his sword to twist after the passing hurlock. He swung with the dagger in his left arm, hoping to find a gap in the armor behind the hurlock's knees.

The swing was too low, glancing harmlessly away, but impact caused the hurlock to stumble when it should have turned. Duncan kicked out, landing a solid blow to the creature's hip and knocking it to the ground.

Duncan spared a glance at Korith, and saw the dwarf's axe take the head off the second darkspawn, and then ran at the hurlock he had kicked. The beast was trying to stand, but too slowly. Duncan kicked it again, catching it in the stomach this time and launching it off the edge of the cliff. It shrieked as it fell, before smashing onto the river rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

"So, turns out there were three," Korith remarked conversationally. He stepped up next to Duncan but was facing down the hill toward the other Wardens, who were sprinting to their aid. "All done," Korith called out, waving them off. "We didn't leave any for you!"

Duncan barely heard. His focus was on the horizon.

He had not looked far enough when he first reached the crest of the hill. He had not seen the pale grey smoke rising in distance, or perhaps he had mistaken it for a cloud. It rose so thick that it did almost look like clouds, and there was so much that once he recognized it as smoke, for a heartbeat he thought there must be a forest fire.

"Korith," he said, and even to himself he sounded shaken.

The dwarf turned and then cursed, slack-jawed, as he saw, too.

The smoke was not from a forest fire, nor was there any forest.

On the other side of the river, a bog stretched for miles in every direction, broken only occasionally by a small rise or a stand of trees. Hills rose in the distance, and at the base of the hills many hundreds of campfires burned. At this distance, they were only pinpricks of light, but the pinpricks were not the warm orange of natural fire – instead they were bright and dark at once, glinting purple and green and even black, like lightening in the dead of night.

The wind rose, and he breathed it in it seemed to him that the wind carried with it the calling, the song stronger than Duncan had ever felt, eclipsing last night's crescendo. He was nauseated, the music sinking deep into his chest and stomach, making his eyes water, and he could almost taste the corruption and rot at its heart.

Around the fires, darkspawn moved in great companies. Duncan could not make out individual forms, nor the emblems on the great banners that flew above them, but he didn't need to see details to know what lay on the horizon.

Beside him, the other Wardens had reached the cliff's edge. One by one, Duncan heard them gasp as if in pain as they, too, were assaulted by the calling.

"How many?" Desmond asked, his voice hoarse.

"Thousands" Korith said. "Maybe more."

For some time they stood in silence, transfixed by the sight and the song, a row of six Grey Wardens bearing witness to a horde, the like of which had not been seen in four centuries.

A passage from the Chant of Light rose in Duncan's mind: _You have brought sin to Heaven, and doom upon all the world._

Whether it was the holy words or a lull in the wind, Duncan was jerked from his trance.

"We need to go," he said, turning away. "Now."

His companions turned as well, and together they ran.

They ran down the hill and through the village, leaving the bodies where they lay, funeral rites unfinished.

They ran through the gate, skipping over the bodies of its defenders, and as he passed the men and women who gave their lives in a vain attempt to save those they loved, he was reminded of the vows he had repeated earlier with Desmond.

 _In death, sacrifice._

Of death and sacrifice, Duncan knew, there would be little shortage now.


	2. AUTHOR'S NOTE

AUTHOR'S NOTE?*

This project is a novel-length retelling of Dragon Age: Origins.

It's written for my wife, who loves to read, and loves fantasy, but can't play video games. She's often remarked to me that she wishes someone would turn Dragon Age into a novel or even a television series. I've never done a fanfic before, and haven't really done any creative writing singe middle school. However, I love to read, and my job entails a great deal of technical writing, so I thought – why not write it down for her?

Since this is my first attempt at fanfic, any feedback is greatly appreciated. The prologue and the first two chapters are up as I write this note, and I have completed five more chapters that are still being edited. I'll post those chapters, and all that follow, as often as I complete them.

The next few paragraphs are for any Dragon Age nerds (like me) out there, who stumble onto this fanfic. Anyone else can disregard.

My story begins with the Cousland (human noble) origin, and from there will generally follow the events of my canon play through (with quite a bit of head canon thrown in besides). I've taken pains to avoid any changes to the lore, the world, the major events of the game(s), or the personality and characteristics of the main characters – because those are the things I really want my wife to experience, and the things that draw her interest when I play the games. That said, there are (and will continue to be) some changes.

The most substantial changes are to volume one, where this work substantially fleshes out the Cousland origin. Changes include expanded roles for Iona and Ser Gilmore, to fit with my head canon; the changes are also made in order to introduce some of the ideas and themes of the setting that the game slips in through NPC conversations and, especially, the codexes (some of which I am including portions of, as well).

For you DA nerds: please, please, please feel free to call me on any mistakes with the lore. I haven't given any of this to my wife yet – posting this stuff to the interwebs is sort of like putting it in beta before I let her read it, so if I've screwed anything up, there's still time to save her! (The plan is to give her each part of the novel as its finished, sort of like a serial novella.)

Anyway, beyond that, thanks for reading, and thanks for any feedback you can send me.

* Do we do author's notes in fanfiction?


	3. Beginning of Every Bad Adventure Tale

_..._

 _The Blight that begins now in the Korcari Wilds spreads behind Duncan and his Grey Wardens. They race to the north to fulfill the duty their Order has always upheld: uniting the lands against the Blights._

 _Strange creatures, Wardens, and few stranger than Duncan._

 _But this is not Duncan's tale. This is tale belongs to another Warden entirely._

 _Far from the Wilds, on the banks of the Waking Sea, we find the city of Highever, a place I know all too well. And in this city, we find a young man, the younger son of the city's ruler, heir to an ancient lineage with which I am also well acquainted._

 _This young man is content in the life he believes laid before him. He does not yet feel the hand of fate guiding his path, nor does he understand the calling that will soon consume the lesser duties to which he has dedicated himself._

 _He will become the Warden of whom we speak, but he is not yet a Warden._

 _Before he takes on their sacred vows – before change sweeps him across its precipice – there is a harsh lesson he must learn._

 _For men's hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 **DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS**

VOLUME ONE: The Fall of House Cousland

...

...

...

 **CODEX: On Ferelden Politics**

To our neighbors, Ferelden must seem utterly chaotic. Unlike other monarchies, power does not descend from our throne. Rather, it rises from the support of the freeholders.

Each freehold chooses the bann or arl to whom it pays allegiance. Typically, this choice is based on proximity of the freehold to the lord's castle, as it's worthless to pay for the upkeep of soldiers who will arrive at your land too late to defend it. For the most part, each generation of freeholders casts its lot with the same bann as their fathers did, but things can and do change.

No formal oaths are sworn, and it is not unheard of, especially in the prickly central Bannorn, for banns to court freeholders away from their neighbors-a practice which inevitably begets feuds that last for ages.

Teyrns arose from amongst the banns, war leaders who, in antiquity, had grown powerful enough to move other banns to swear fealty to them. There were many teyrns in the days before King Calenhad united all the banns into the nation we now call Ferelden, but he succeeded in whittling them down to only two: Gwaren in the south, Highever in the north.

These two teyrns still hold the oaths of banns and arls who they may call upon in the event of war or disaster, and similarly, the teyrns still hold responsibility for defending those sworn to them.

The arls were in turn established by the teyrns, given command of strategic fortresses that could not be overseen by the teyrns themselves. Unlike the teyrns, the arls have no banns sworn to them, and are simply somewhat more prestigious banns.

The king is, in essence, the most powerful of the teyrns. Although Denerim was originally the teyrnir of the king, it has since been reduced to an arling, as the king's domain is now all of Ferelden. But even the king's power must come from the banns.

Nowhere is this more evident than during the Landsmeet, an annual council for which all the nobles of Ferelden gather, held for almost three thousand years except odd interruptions during Blights and invasions. The sight of a king asking for-and working to win-the support of "lesser" men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.

Excerpted from "Ferelden: Folklore and History"

by Sister Petrine, Chantry Scholar

...

...

...

 **CHAPTER ONE:** The Beginning of Every Bad Adventure Tale

 **I am Liam Cousland,** the second son of the Teyrn of Highever. My family is one of the oldest lines in Ferelden, and my father is one of the most powerful men in the country; he owes fealty to the King, and no other. When I was born, it was to the duties and privileges of nobility. Today, however, I have been hunting rats. I'm covered in dirt and cobwebs, my arms and legs are sore, and I am drenched in my own sweat.

I'm also laughing so hard I think my sides may split.

"I did!" Aeron insists through his own laughter. "I said to him, 'The shield's a metaphor, it's in all of us.'"

Neither of us exactly _decided_ to take a break, but somehow we have been standing in this hot, windowless basement room for the better part of an hour, recounting childhood exploits and youthful indiscretions with new exaggerations. As it's always been, Aeron tells most of the tales, having barely paused for breath as he moved from his alleged conquest of a comely young Chantry sister to gossip about the culinary habits of a particularly fat Bann to his current tale, about a shield he won in a tournament last summer.

"And he just looks at me," Aeron continues, "and he's got his eyebrows all scrunched up, all confused – like this – and he says…. 'What's a metaphor?'"

I've heard this story before, probably a dozen times, and heard it evolve with each retelling, and still I've found myself leaning on the stone wall, laughing until I'm gasping for breath.

My hound, Madra, paces the room impatiently, sniffing at its corners and whining insistently. She is, unsurprisingly, the only one eager to return to hunting rats.

It's her penchant for the hunt that landed us this duty, in fact, when she went prowling in the kitchen of Castle Highever earlier this morning.

How she got into the kitchen to begin with, I'm not exactly sure, since the doors are kept latched specifically to keep her out. Then again, there's very little in this world that deters Madra once she sets her mind to something, even a locked door. Like most Mabari, Madra is muscular, with the broad shoulders and thick neck that distinguish the breeds, and at five years old she's reached her full weight, just more than two hundred and twenty pounds. For all I know, she just may have simply battered the kitchen door down.

I'm also not sure whether she went to the kitchen hoping to beg for scraps, or because she smelled the rats and was in the mood for blood.

Either way, her rampage was curtailed only when she cornered one of the rats in a small larder off of the main kitchen, and was promptly locked inside by one of the servants. There she remained, barking ferociously and clawing at the inside of the door, and driving the kitchen staff to distraction, until word reached my mother.

...

 **While Madra was raising her own special brand of hell in the kitchen,** Aeron and I were seated at a table in the dining hall on the second floor Castle Highever's keep. Our simple breakfast – eggs, and porridge made from corn – was long finished, and the two of us were muddling through a conversation that, for once, was quite serious.

We've known each other so long that anything meaningful rarely needs to be said, and now that circumstances demanded an honest discussion, neither of us seemed to know where to start. So, instead, we chose to push our utensils back and forth while talking in circles about everything that had led up to Aeron's news, instead of the news itself. For as many words as we'd spent already, we'd gotten remarkably close to nowhere when my mother burst through one of the small doors that lead down to the tower's ground level.

Unlike my father, mother is not noble-born, and it's a matter of pride to her that she retains the fierce pragmatism of her upbringing. She wears the formal gowns of her rank only when there is no other choice, and always seems to don a terrible mood along with the silk and heavy jewelry. As she stalked toward us with purple and white finery hiked up nearly to her knees, it appeared that today was no exception.

"Your hound has the entire kitchen in an uproar," Mother said, slowing but not stopping as she passed our table. "Nan is threatening to quit again. I don't know what's going on, but you will handle it immediately."

"Yes ma'am," I said, choosing what I've found to be the only correct response when my mother is in a bad mood.

"Today of all days," she said to one in particular as she reached wall. There, she paused at the base of the spiral staircase that leads up to my father's great hall and turned. "Be warned, Liam," she added, the faintest hint of good humor creeping into her voice. "If Nan _actually_ quits, I'll be anointing you the new head cook."

"Maker help us all," Aeron replied immediately.

This made her chuckle, seemingly in spite of herself. "Maker help us all, indeed," she said, before disappearing up the stairs.

Incidentally, I've been told that in other castles, in others corners of Ferelden, the wives of lords do not concern themselves with the running of their kitchens or the morale of their staff. One assumes that in these other castles, the sons of lords are likewise not sent to mollify angry cooks – and do not end up hunting rats. But this is Highever, and we are Couslands; nobility here does not mean the same thing as it does elsewhere, and I would have it no other way.

So we rose, grabbed our weapons, and started for the kitchen. On the way, I paused at another table long enough to ask one of our friends, a guardsman still working on his own breakfast, to convey our regrets to the sergeant-at-arms. In just a few minutes, morning drills would be starting in the training yard. Although not members of the guard, Aeron and I attend so often that the sergeant would almost certainly have waited for us.

We are both armed and armored in anticipation of the drills. Aeron wears heavy, red leather armor over a chainmail tunic, and carries a longsword at his waist; a shield over his shoulder bears the Cousland sigil, green laurel leaves crossed at the stem over a blue background. My armor is lighter than Aeron's, composed of only a sturdy leather vest worn over a thick wool shirt, and a skirt of steel-reinforced leather hanging over my kilt. Like most Ferelden men, I wear a kilt that is brown and rough and without pattern, typical of our utilitarian approach to fashion; the kilt is gathered at the waist by a thick belt, from which I've hung my short-sword on one hip and a dagger on the other.

Although Aeron is by far the better swordsman, we both look forward to morning drills, and I regretted that whatever Madra was stirring was costing us time in the training yard. There was no question of Aeron going to the training yard without me. Madra may be my hound, and mother's instruction may have been directed only at me, but it's understood that wherever I go, Aeron will follow.

Throughout our childhood, the opposite was true: I followed wherever Aeron led, which was into mischief more often than not. Then as now, he was the taller, stronger, and more daring of the two us, with a penchant for picking fights with older boys and pulling the pigtails of pretty girls. We rarely went a day without opening cuts or spreading muddy mayhem, and I occasionally feel pangs of guilt for the endless trouble we visited upon our parents, our servants, and our longsuffering tutor, Brother Aldous.

As good as he was at getting into trouble, Aeron was equally adept at getting out. Even with cheeks reddened from a well-earned slap, or eyes black and lip split, he always had a huge grin on his face and a twinkle in his green eyes. He was handsome but not foppish, charming but never ingratiating, impish but sincere. The girls loved him, the adults couldn't seem stay angry with him, and the other boys, like me, would have followed him anywhere – and did, whether it was to the aid of a sick friend or to a forbidden burlesque show in the port district.

Four summers ago, we both turned sixteen and finished our formal schooling. In Ferelden, this marks the transition to adulthood, and we were entrusted with titles and responsibilities. Our roles changed, even if our natures did not. Aeron is Ser Gilmore now, having formally assumed his family's duties as a bodyguard and steward to the Cousland line, and I am a Ser as well, tasked to learn the art of ruling, with all of its complexities and mundanities.

The majority of my waking moments are spent navigating an endless stream of petty courts and scrivener's errors, granary inspections and formal dinners. Frankly, it's enough to numb the minds of a dozen men. A Cousland always does his duty, however - a creed that has been drilled into me from birth - and the relative luxury of morning drills has kept me from losing my sanity.

It's helped that, despite coming of age, Aeron refuses to take anything too seriously.

When I'm at wit's end trying to arbitrate a dispute over the naming of fishing vessels, Aeron can be counted on to suggest I award naming rights to the captain with less offensive flatulence. When some minor Bann's drunken toast rambles on during a banquet, I can count on Aeron to quietly point out the ample cleavage displayed by the same Bann's daughter.

He is observant about more serious matters, too, and can be counted on for good advice as well as irreverence – but the jokes, the duties shirked occasionally for hunting trips, the sleep lost to nights drinking with friends – those have been Aeron's greatest gift to me these past few years. And now, in the wake of his news, I am left reeling, wondering how exactly I am supposed to maintain my sanity without his influence.

...

 **Really, Aeron's news should not surprise me.**

The first signs of trouble had come early in the summer, when a steady trickle of refugees from Ferelden's southern border brought rumors of dark clouds full of purple lightening, of missing caravans and burnt villages, of darkspawn raids well north of the Korcari Wilds. But news from the south was always bad – southerners prided themselves on it, in fact – and so few people paid the rumors much heed, me and Aeron least of all.

Then, a week ago, a courier arrived for my father, bearing a letter sealed with a griffon sigil – the symbol of the Grey Wardens. The Grey Wardens are an order so famously reclusive, so singular in purpose, that the mere presence of their seal gave immediate credence to all of the rumors. Almost as soon as the courier rode through the castle's gate, the word _Blight_ was whispered on many lips, and before the courier's audience with my father was complete, the castle's abbey was filled with the faithful, knees bowed as they sung the Chant of Light.

The Warden courier left through the castle's eastern gate on a new horse, galloping along the old Imperial highway, and less than an hour later, father's own riders went out, scattering to the various Banns and Arls who have pledged fealty to my father. The army of Highever was being called up, and the militias and constabulary placed on alert. A few days later, orders came from the king to prepare for a march south, to the abandoned fortress at Ostagar. Finally, I began to understand that real change might be upon us.

Then last night, Grey Wardens arrived at the tower: no mere couriers but living legends, myths made flesh striding through our castle. They spoke with my father for hours in his private study, and were still there when I retired for the night. I assumed the Wardens had stopped in Highever simply to rest for a night, and were sharing news with my father before they would ride on, but apparently they were recruiting.

On the way down to breakfast this morning, Aeron told me that he was awakened around midnight by a knock at his door and summoned to the study. Only one of the wardens was there, a dark haired man who gave his name as Duncan, and said he was commander of their Order here in Ferelden. He was looking for warriors, and had heard stories of Aeron's skill with a blade even before coming to Highever.

Of course, Aeron accepted the offer. He has dreamed of adventure since we were in small clothes, and I can easily remember a dozen times he led our friends in make-believe crusades against imaginary darkspawn. That fire has never died, and I have no doubt that life as a traveling warrior will suit Aeron well. Perhaps even more important, if the darkspawn truly are stirring in the south, there can be no greater service than as a Grey Warden, and the Gilmore's value duty and service as highly as we Couslands.

I should be happy for him, and in a way I am.

But what I struggled to say over breakfast is that I will miss him. I could have just said so, but those words don't begin to touch the depth of my sentiment. Aeron is more than just my friend: he is closer than my brother, and I will feel his absence like a lost limb or a missing sense.

Change has been in the air for weeks now. I felt it in the refugees and their rumors, in the couriers and the muster of soldiers. It is real change, not just the incremental changes of growing older, but the sort of change that will be written into history, the sort that reshapes nations and defines lives. I just didn't expect the change to touch me on such a personal level.

My whole world shifted this morning, I know this and I feel it in my soul, but around me the world hasn't caught up with the change. As we descended the stairs to the kitchen to find Madra, or even now as I lean against the cold stone, my sides sore from laughing at Aeron's story of the shield and the metaphor, I could easily believe that nothing has changed, and nothing ever will.

...

 **We could hear Madra barking** as soon as we left the dining hall. Before we reached the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen, we could hear Nan yelling, as well. It is not an unfamiliar sound.

Nan is undisputed lord and master of the kitchens, which are built around an enormous central fireplace on the keep's ground level. Smaller kitchens, each of which serves a specific purpose, are furthest back, built against the northern wall of the keep, where it meets the castle's rearmost curtain wall. The rest of the keep's ground floor is taken up by one large cooking space, which must be referred to exclusively as the Kitchen Proper in Nan's presence.

Her kingdom extends up to the dining hall, but also down, through the basement, which contains a bakery and the wine cellar, and into the sub-basements, where enough food is stored to the see the castle through months of siege or a week of determined feasting.

Her subjects, a small army of elven servants, are busy day and night, stoking fires and slicing roasts and carrying trays and ferrying messages and serving wine. Collectively, they hear and see almost everything that goes on in the castle, and nearly all of that information is reported to Nan.

She runs the tower as surely as my father runs the Teyrnir, and if she yells more than he does, it is only because her first job was not in the kitchens at all, but as nanny to me and my older brother, Fergus – and by proxy to Aeron as well, who proudly claims to be responsible for at least half the grey in her hair.

When the two of us pushed through the Kitchen Proper's side door, we found Nan had backed several of her servants into a corner and is gesturing rather wildly with a small sieve. "You mean to tell me that the lot of you can't get one bloody mutt out of my larder?"

"But mistress!" one of the elves protested, "It won't let us get near!"

"If I can't get into that larder, I can't get to the meat." Every few words, Nan took another step toward the elves, brandishing the sieve as though it were a knife. "And if I can't get to the meat, I'll skin the lot of you worthless elves and serve you in the pies instead, _I swear it_!"

"No need for that, you old crone," Aeron called out happily, prompting Nan to wheel on him, sieve raised to attack

"You! I knew that smell was something worse than the soup Cath's burning!"

You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but Nan was clearly glad to see us.

"Do you ever bathe?" she demanded of Aeron, before turning her glare to me. "And _you!"_ She pointed a crooked finger at my face. " _Your_ bloody mongrel keeps getting into my larder! That bitch ought to be put down!"

"She's not just 'a bitch,'" I said, smiling in spite of myself. "She's a pureblood Mabari, and if I recall, you helped me pick her out."

Nan advanced on us menacingly before abruptly tucking the sieve into her apron and pulling us into a hug, one arm around each of our necks. "A blight wolf is what she is," Nan grumbled after letting us go and gestured helplessly at the mess. "How am I supposed to work like this?"

The kitchen was indeed in shambles. Baskets of bread were knocked over, loaves scattered on the floor, and several sacks of flour and cornmeal had been torn open. Spices were spilled nearby, congealing in cracked eggs. The trail of devastation stretched in several directions, but clearly ended at a blue larder door, from behind which Madra was barking fiercely.

"You really ought to keep the dogs out of the kitchen in the first place," Aeron suggested, and had to duck back from a swat.

"I ought to lock you out of the bloody kitchen!" Nan looked at me and shook her head, throwing her hands up. "That's it! I'll quit. Tell your mother. I'll go cook at some nice estate in the Bannorn. Maker knows there are nobles enough poking around my tower, I'm sure one of the bastards needs a cook!"

Nan threatens to quit almost every time I see her, so there was no real worry there, but I could tell she was genuinely upset by the havoc wrought by my dog, and her initial pleasure at seeing Aeron and I was giving way to frothy fury. I pulled her into another hug before she could get going, and planted a kiss on her forehead.

"It's good to see you, too, Nan," I said. "And stop worrying. We'll get her out of your kitchen and help you tidy up the mess, besides. Just – take a breath."

"Don't you go telling old ladies when to breathe, Master Cousland," she said, leaning back from my hug, but she was smiling now. "You just get that bitch gone. I've enough to worry about with a castle full of hungry soldiers." She wheeled around on the elves. "And you lot, stop standing there gawping like idiots! Get to cleaning!"

I crouched in front of the larder door, waiting for Aeron to man its latch.

"How did she get into the kitchen, really, though?" I asked over my shoulder.

"How in blazes am I supposed to know?" was Nan's reply. "She up and walked through the wall, I expect. That hound isn't natural. It's in her eyes – she does this on purpose, just to torment me!"

"No, Nan," Aeron corrected, taking up his position, "that's my job."

I nodded to Aeron, and Aeron flipped up the latch, and I was nearly bowled over by Madra, who immediately planted her front feet on my waist and strained up to lick my neck and chin. My hands went to her collar, but as her hot breath hit my face I saw blood flecked across her muzzle and coating her lips and teeth.

Not wanting any of the blood on my face, I pushed her down and tried to hold her collar, thinking to check her for any injuries, but she tore out of my grasp immediately only to bounce happily around my ankles before rushing back into the larder. She spun in place inside and then dropped her haunches to sit expectantly over the wet, mangled corpses of three rats.

Tongue lolling and stubby tail wagging furiously, it was plain that Madra was quite pleased with her find. For the rest of us, however, even the deadest of rats are not something to be celebrated, especially in the kitchen larder. Worse, however, was the size of the corpse between Madra's front paws: the rat's body was nearly the size of a loaf of bread, and easily twice as long and three times the weight of the other two.

Local farmers call these monstrosities bog rats, and I understand they are common in southern Ferelden but occasionally migrate north. I've seen them only a handful of times, usually in abandoned farmhouses or the back alleys of bad slums, and found them unsettling on each occasion.

Bog rats enjoy a reputation as ferocious burrowers, voracious eaters, and tenacious fighters, and are generally the last thing one wants in a castle's kitchen. Nan wasted no time conscripting me, Aeron, and Madra into a hunting party. Nan assigned a servant to us, a young male elf named Varren, and equipped him with a heavy-looking broom and a large wicker basket for corpse duty.

"Don't come back until you've taken that mongrel through every room in the Kitchen Proper, the support kitchens, and all of the lower levels," she said. "The bitch can pay me back for the damage she's done."

Bitch or no, however, Madra was rewarded by Nan with a generous handful of bacon trimmings, which she threw back in a single gulp.

"You can have the whole slab once you've dealt with the vermin," Nan told the hound, and then shuffled us off to our hunt.

...

 **We found no more rats on the keep's ground floor,** but as soon as we descended to the basement bakery, the chase was on. Madra worried several rats from a cold cupboard stacked with sacks of yeast, and more still from a storage room full of grain bins. She did the majority of the work, while Aeron and I commandeered brooms and used the long handles to club any rats that made it past Madra. Varren watched it all with a bemused expression, and as we cleared each room, he added dead vermin to his basket before directing us to the next storeroom.

We didn't find another bog rat until we had descended to the first sub-basement, when one of the creatures burst from behind a stack of barrels. Easily larger than a cat, with yellow fangs and pink eyes, the rat was improbably intimidating, and I dropped my broom immediately in favor of the short sword hanging on my right hip.

From there on, we encountered bog rats almost exclusively. The bastards were quick, and once they were backed into a corner they'd become desperate, baring their teeth and charging at our legs. Aeron's shield and longsword immediately proved the next best thing to useless, so he commandeered the broom from Varren and spent most of his energy kicking the rats back toward me or Madra. My sword, much shorter than Aeron's, was not particularly lethal, but if he kicked them hard enough or I landed a swat with the flat of my blade, it would stun the creatures long enough for me to finish the job, or for Madra to tear into the rat's throat.

Usually there was only one to a room, but twice we encountered nests, and the combat was more frenzied. One of the rats actually managed to bite Aeron, sinking his teeth into the leather greaves that guard his shin, missing skin by only millimeters.

"I'm glad we were on the way to drill," Aeron said after, examining the twin cuts in the armor. "It'd be embarrassing to die in the basement from a rat bite."

The work was hard, and hot. The fires and ovens in the kitchen and basement burn day and night, and the very walls on these lower levels radiate warmth. The only light in most of the passages comes from torches set in the walls, or braziers on the floors, adding acrid smoke to the already-oppressive atmosphere.

By the time Varren guided us to the lowest sub-floor, three levels below the Kitchen Proper, Varren's basket was so full he had to drag it behind him, smearing the stone floor with blood. All of us were breathing hard, and Madra's flanks shined slick with sweat. Our water skeins were long empty, and when Varren offered to refill them, Aeron and I both jumped at the chance to take a breather.

Really, it would have been the right time to talk to Aeron about the Wardens – to tell him I was proud of him – to tell him I knew he'd make Highever proud – to tell him how much I'd miss him when he left – but instead, I reminded him of the time we snuck through this same basement as schoolboys, trying to catch my older brother, Fergus, with one of his paramours. We found nothing but cobwebs and ended the excursion with boxed ears, courtesy of Nan, who at the time was actually my Nanny. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about the memory, but we both find it inexplicably hilarious.

We had lost interest in the rat hunt and lost ourselves in old memories well before Varren returned. He brought us wine in the skeins, not water, and a pitcher of milk for Madra, and seemed content to sit in the corner cross-legged, nursing his own skein and listening to our raucous laughter. I suppose even our inanity had to be better than Nan's kitchen, or bog rats, for that matter.

And so almost an hour passed.

...

" **I swear," Aeron is saying,** the tale of the metaphorical shield at an end, "some of you high born, I don't know how you remember your own names!"

In an effort to catch my breath after what feels like a solid hour of laughing, I'm leaning against the wall wand clutching my side, still chuckling. Beside me, Madra whines incessantly, bumping her nose against my hand. Then she rushes to the far door and sinks low the floor, growling ominously for a few seconds before bouncing back to me. She's been repeating this cycle for several minutes now. Clearly there are more rats on the other side of the door, and Madra is letting us know our break has gone on long enough. It's an odd coincidence, surely, that her patience expired about the same time she finished her pitcher of milk.

"Well…shit," Aeron says, sighs, and looks around.

Taking the cue, Varren rises fluidly, seeming to stand straight up without having to adjust his weight or even move his legs. Other than their pointed ears, elves look so similar to humans that it can be easy to forget they are an entirely different species; when they move that way, with such effortless grace, it's easier to remember the distinction.

Varren walks to the door and Madra bounces after him, eager to continue the hunt. His hand resting on the latch, Varren turns to us and cocks his head, waiting for our signal. Madra is growling fiercely, her nose pressed to the crack of the door, which means there are almost certainly rats in the hallway beyond the door; after the last skirmishes, none of us are interested in taking chances.

Aeron hefts the broom, I draw my sword, and we both nod to Varren. The door is thrown open, Varren jumps back, and suddenly Madra is lost in a tangle of fur, barking, and inhuman growling. For a second, Aeron and I don't move, shocked by this rat's suicidal charge, but then we advance, weapons up.

The dog and the rat are locked too tightly in their struggle for either of us to intervene, and I realize that this one is enormous even for a bog rat – about half Madra's size. _Do rats have queens?_ I wonder, recognizing the thought is ridiculous as soon as it rises, but not sure how else to explain what I'm seeing.

Madra and the rat tumble through the door, into a long corridor. Stone archways open up, three on each side of the corridor, and at the far end, a single, barred window looks out to blue sky. We are in the keep's basement, underground on three sides, but the north side of the keep is built down into the cliff face that falls away beneath Castle Highever's north curtain wall. The window must be cut into the cliff's face, which from below appears to rise straight up to the castle walls. Appearances are deceiving, however, and I know there are many crevasses and outcroppings where trees grow and birds nest, and - one assumes - rats can find space to nest.

Wooden shutters hang open on either side of the window, the latch undone, likely forgotten by whoever last used the room. Even if it has only been open a few days, that's easily enough time for rats to find their way in, make a home, and spread.

Confirming my suspicion, at least a half dozen small shapes scuttle across the corridor, from one archway to the other.

I call out a warning to Aeron in case he didn't see, and as I do, several of the bog rats burst out of the shadows, rushing toward Madra and the big one, sensing the chance for a kill. I wish I had my bow. I am much better with arrows than with a blade, and there's no doubt in my mind I could pincushion the little buggers as they run, far more easily than I can catch and finish them with a sword. The morning drills I expected to attend are specific to close quarters combat, however, and so my bow and quiver are in my room, at least seven stories above.

Madra breaks free just as the other rats reach her, and leaps sideways, catching one in her jaws and shaking as she soars through the air. She crashes into one of the pillars between archways and tosses the rat aside, back broken, to twitch on the floor, while Aeron and I advance through the door, weapons up. Aeron has handed the broom back to Varren and drawn both sword and shield; he is crouched low to the ground, the tip of his shield trailing on the stone floor and his sword held high and ready.

As we clear the door, I begin to wonder if this is actually a good idea. Bog rats are emerging from all of the archways, and although half of them are heading for the window and freedom, the other half are moving slowly toward us. Now that I'm in the corridor, I can see that this corridor housed bags of grain, many of which are split open, grain spilling across the floors and mixing with rat droppings. The rats found a feast here, and they are either defending their bounty or hoping to add us to the menu.

Madra has killed another of the smaller bog rats and is circling the big one that charged us, her growl low and menacing.

The door slams behind us, and I risk a glance back, thinking Varren may have abandoned us. Instead, I see he has the broom in one hand and a torch from the storeroom in the other. "To keep them from getting out, milord," he says simply, and steps up beside us.

Then several of the rats leap at Madra's exposed haunches, and the battle begins. If I try to tell this story one day, to my family or perhaps to friends over drinks, I know it will sound ridiculous, but for several minutes I feel like I'm fighting for my life. As they swarm around my boots, none manage to draw blood, but I can feel teeth finding holds on the leather, and I am forced to kick wildly to fling them loose, sometimes two or three at a time. They are trying to climb my legs. I stomp as many of them as I cut, and I see the reason Aeron has crouched so low is to use his shield as a battering ram, smashing several rats at a time aside.

Varren surprises me. He stays slightly behind, but wields the torch effectively, keeping the rats from swarming too heavily behind us, and occasionally lands a strike with the butt end of the broom, stunning or outright killing one of the vermin.

Madra moves between our legs and in front of us, killing when the opportunity presents itself, but focused on the biggest of them. At one point, her adversary lunges past me to escape, and the sheer weight of the rat as it strikes my knee staggers me. I lose my footing and collapse against a stone pillar, dropping my sword into the swarm of rats. Varren leaps to my side and pulls me back to my feet, waving the torch back and forth, driving the big one and its comrades back while I right myself and retrieve my weapon.

I thank him, but there's no answer as the elf retreats nimbly to our rear, lashing out at a number of the beasts that are trying to climb the back of Aeron's greaves.

It continues like this for what feels like five minutes. The only sounds are squealing and growling, the thud of kicks, the grate of shield and swords against stone, and the wet sounds when rats are broken or cut apart. By the time it's over, at least twenty rats are dead, strewn across the corridor and around the grain bags. The rest have retreated out the window.

The big one is slumped on its side, square in the middle of the carnage. Madra stands over it, triumphant. Her flanks are heaving as she catches her breathe, but her tongue is lolling contentedly and her demeanor tells me there are no more nearby. The Battle of the Lower Scullery seems to have reached its end.

"This is the last room, milord," Varren says, still brandishing the torch and broom. "That should be the last of them.

"Let's bloody well hope so," Aeron remarks

"We just spent an hour killing rats together," I tell Varren. "You don't have to call me 'milord' right now."

He nods politely, and then regards the corpses with uncertainty, glancing around the room and then back to our basket, full enough before we encountered these monsters. "We could use some of the bags of grain, milord," Varren suggests.

Aeron walks up to the big one's corpse, and Madra steps aside as he pokes the rat's belly with the point of his sword.

"It's bigger than a fucking turkey!" he exclaims with awe, and Varren and I both laugh.

"I've never seen anything like it, sers," Varren says, "and I hope not to again."

"Do you think it was their leader?" Aeron asks no one in particular. "The Arl of Rats, perhaps?"

"Darkspawn follow an Archdemon," I point out, walking over to the rough burlap sacks that held the grain. "Maybe that's an arch rat?"

Aeron throws his head back and laughs. "Maybe this is my test! Kill an arch rat before I have to face an Archdemon!"

He closes the window and secures the latch, still chuckling, then shakes the shutters just to be sure.

"It's closed up tight," Aeron says. "All the same, maybe we should string some of them up on the columns? Just as a warning to the others?"

"If Madam Cook found that, she'd have my hide," Varren says. "I'd prefer we not, sers."

"We just killed an arch rat," Aeron says, incredulous, "and you're afraid of an old woman?"

" _That_ old woman?" Varren asks. "I should think so."

...

 **Most of the only-modestly-enormous rats fit in the basket** , although its wicker frame is creaking in protest by the end. Only one of the burlap sacks that the rats got into is salvageable, but we fill it as well with bodies. Helpfully, Madra lifts two more in her teeth, her stubby tail wagging furiously, and that leaves only the arch rat, which Aeron hefts over his shoulder without a second thought.

Aeron leads the way, Madra following close at his heel, Varren and I bringing up the rear with the basket hanging between us. Varren gives directions as we walk back the way we came, and after several left turns we arrive at a short stairwell.

As we descend the cobblestone steps, I see the foundation stones give way to bedrock, and I realize this passage was cut into the rocks of the promontory on which Highever Castle stands. The stairs end at a large room, also carved out of the bedrock on three sides. Opposite the stairs, however, the far wall is built from the same stone as the rest of the castle, and at its center stands a heavy, wrought-iron door, barred from within. On either side of the door, arrow loops have been cut in the wall for archers, stretching from floor to ceiling.

Crossbows hang on one of the side walls, above several crates full of bolts, and several heavy shields lean nearby. Racks hold an assortment of pikes, axes, and longswords are set along the opposite wall. It's an impressive collection of weaponry, but not enough to be called an armory. Besides the armaments, the room contains an empty brazier and a wooden table with benches on either side.

Three guardsmen are seated at the table, playing cards spread between them as they gape at us and our grisly luggage. We have interrupted a game of Wicked Grace, apparently, and flustered the guards in the process. They clearly recognize Aeron first, and from there it is an easy leap to my identity.

"Ser- Ser Cousland!" the one of them stammers. Insignia on his armor identifies him as a corporal of the guard. "What…what are you doing, milord?"

"A better question might be what _you_ are doing," Aeron says sharply, tossing the enormous rat at the corporal's feet and staring pointedly at the cards. I know Aeron well enough to know he is having a bit of fun, but the corporal is clearly terrified, his face going sheet white almost instantly.

"We were just, ah…" He looks hopelessly at the cards, down at the rat, back at Aeron, and finally back at his two companions, who are at least as stunned as he is. It's not hard to guess their thoughts: Are they about to be punished for playing cards on duty? More importantly, why is Ser Gilmore throwing dead rats at them?

"Playing cards on duty, corporal?" Aeron demands, and I see the corner of his lip twitching. "While savage demon rats plague the castle and your liege lord battles them alone?"

"My lord?" the poor man asks, now desperately confused as well as afraid, and I feel compelled to step in before he collapses.

"What is this place?" I ask, my voice intentionally calm as I set down the rat basket.

"My lord?" the corporal asks again, now with a note of hope in his voice.

"There aren't many parts of this castle I haven't been to," I tell him, walking forward and peering out one of the arrow loops. "I've stumbled into a great many storerooms and cupboards today that I never knew existed, but this is more than a storeroom."

"This is the servant's exit, my lord," the corporal says, stepping around the table and walking up beside me.

"Ah, yes," I say, absently, examining the door itself. "I wondered if it might be." As soon as I saw the door, I knew, but asking the question seems to have calmed the corporal's nerves.

The servant's exit leads to one of Castle Highever's most prominent features, a long stone stairway cut into the north face of the promontory. The stairs double back and forth several times, descending almost three hundred feet straight down to the shallow, grassy embankments that rise up against the cliff face. From there, a dirt path leads to Highever's alienage, where most of the castle's elven servants live with their families.

"Would you like to see outside, my lord?" the corporal asks hesitantly, and I nod assent.

"We'd like to do more than see," Aeron remarks, gesturing at the rats, "unless you'd like to keep these as decoration?"

The corporal shakes his head and hurriedly removes a ring of thick brass keys from his belt. He uses a different key to free each of several padlocks holding bars across the door, and then slides the bars into recesses in the wall. Finally he grips the door handle and, with some effort, swings it inward. Immediately, a blast of salty air rushes into the room, and with it the of morning sunshine, almost blindingly bright in the basement's torch-lit darkness.

Hesitantly, my hand held up against the sun, I step out through the door and find myself on a sturdy wooden bridge. On my right, the cliff face drops away precipitously, but on the left, smooth rock stretches forward perhaps ten feet, and I realize the servant's exit has been built into a natural outcropping of rock. I suspect the granary that was the site of our battle with the arch rat is inside that rock outcropping.

The bridge runs parallel to the outcropping, perhaps an arm's length from the cliff face; its entire length is covered by the arrow loops on either side of the door. There are no handrails on the bridge, and although it is probably wide enough for two people to walk abreast, the effect is dizzying as I walk its length, perhaps six feet, to the point where it meets the outcropping. Here, a landing has been cut from the stone, and the first flight of steps descends left, around the nose of the outcropping. Wooden posts are set in the rock at the edge of the landing and down the steps, not a full railing but enough to steady yourself against fatigue or wind.

I rest a hand on one of the posts and allow myself a few moments of quiet. Highever seems to stretch out from beneath my feet, a confused pattern of streets and alleys, houses and markets, bounded by the city walls to the east and west, and the Waking Sea to the north. The sea itself is especially breathtaking, a living mosaic of deep blues and greens, sparkling with reflected sunlight. Most of the fishing boats will be tied up to docks in the port district by now, but I can see a few sails, red or green, riding the waves.

The port district borders the alienage, which is separated from the rest of the city by a wooden palisade. There are gates built into the palisade at each point of the compass, with the southern gate opening to the dirt path leading to the stairs and the northern gate opening directly into the port district. In times past, the gates were manned, and elves were required to present work visas or travel permits before coming or going, a practice my father did away shortly after becoming Teyrn.

Hearing a series of thumps behind me, I turn and see that Varren and the corporal have emptied the basket over the edge of the bridge. Rat carcasses cascade down the cliff face, which I notice now is stained with what looks like years of grime and grease. I wonder how much refuse is piled at the base of the cliffs, and who collects it for transport to the waste yards outside the city gates. I've spent the last two years of my life studying the management of this city, and there are still so many things I don't know.

Varren and the corporal retreat back inside, and Aeron steps out briefly, arm cocked, before he throws the arch rat with all his might. The rat whizzes past my head, sailing out over the landing before curving down and out of sight.

"Farewell, worthy foe!" Aeron calls after the corpse, an enormous grin on his face.

...

 **As we climb winding stairs** from the sub-basement back to the Kitchen Proper, Aeron begins to chuckle slowly, eventually breaking out in a full-bellied laugh. A few steps ahead of him, I turn my head and glance back quizzically.

"Oh, I was just thinking," he says.

"Thinking, huh?"

"Stow it," he says. Then he chuckles, and shakes his head. "Giant rats? Can you believe it?"

We stop now, as much for breathe as to talk. My arms and legs are leaden, and underneath my armor I'm soaked with sweat, but unlike Aeron, covered in chainmail and leather almost head to toe, I can feel a breeze on my arms and legs. His face is flushed and his hair is plastered to his skull, but, as always, he seems in good humor.

"I know you'll miss me when I'm gone," he continues. "Hell, the whole castle will miss me. Nay, the entire Teyrnir! But – you know I'll miss you too, right?"

I nod, not sure what to say.

"You're not just like a brother to me," Aeron says. "You _are_ my brother, and my best friend. But you know – you know this – being a Warden? I'll miss this place, and you, but being a Warden is everything I've ever wanted." He laughs again, shaking his head in disbelief, and I can see for the first time that he is not just excited, but overjoyed, happy to his core. "It's an adventure, isn't it? The start of my adventure, anyway. And giant rats?"

Again, he laughs, and again he shakes his head.

"Giant rats," he repeats. "It's like the start of every bad adventure tale my grandfather used to tell. Nan, too, when we were kids, right? It always starts with giant rats! And now adventure's here, and sure enough…" He spreads his hands, covered in dried rat blood, and grins. "Giant fucking rats!"

...

" **Now you definitely smell,"** Nan says as soon as we walk back into her kitchen.

"No doubt!" Aeron replies, all false haughtiness. "Your basements were a _disaster_ , good woman, a _shame_. Mold and lichen and rats the size of ponies and…"

Nan came around the edge of a countertop, brandishing her sieve again. "I'll have your ears, you whelp!"

Aeron hopped out of reach, giggling.

"Grab him," Nan commanded, waving at several of the elven servants, "and I'll double your salaries if you can hold him down while I box his ears!"

One of the servants, an elven girl named Cath, looks positively alarmed. "Mistress…?" she asks, but she looks at me beseechingly.

Nan's sense of humor is lost on most of the help, partly because she is not known for treating servants especially well, nor elves in general. A rant from Nan that can be taken as a joke when aimed at me or Aeron might have a cold edge to it when directed at Cath. This may be why Varren elected to stay below and tidy up the rest aftermath.

"Ignore her," I tell Cath with a smile. "Although," I add, to Aeron now, "It _has_ been a while since she boxed your ears."

"And it will be a while longer," Aeron says, before grinning at Cath. "Although you, my dear, can box my ears any time you like."

He winks at Cath, and she flushes.

I know Cath from my childhood, when her mother worked in the kitchens and she played in the courtyard with me and Aeron and a handful of others whenever we weren't in classes. She and Aeron hated each other then. Times, apparently, have changed – although, I've rarely met a young lady who can't be made to swoon with just a wink from Aeron.

He turns to Nan, oblivious to Cath's reaction – or at least, pretending to be.

"Nan, I'm pleased to report, the rats have been vanquished." He bows theatrically. "It was a grand battle, the likes of which-"

"I'm sure it was," Nan interrupts, and beckons Madra over.

A heaping bowl of trimmings sits at the edge of the counter, and Madra has had her eye on it since the top step.

"You probably let them in, you miserable bitch," Nan grumbles, placing the bowl on the floor and ruffling Madra's ears affectionately as the Hound steps forward politely, pauses, then unceremoniously submerges half her face in the meal.

"Actually, I think she killed more than the rest of us combined," I tell Nan.

"Rats?" a child's voice demands excitedly, and I turn to see my nephew, Oren, framed in the same door Aeron and I entered after breakfast.

Behind him, my older brother, Fergus, steps into view. He is wearing formal clothes, a doublet and trousers instead of the smock and kilt he usually prefers, and his hair, usually loose, is tied back into a ponytail, much longer than my own short queue. Although we live on the same floor of the keep, we see each other rarely; Fergus' responsibilities are mostly with the militia and constabulary, and he spends much of his time far from the castle, meeting with banns and freeholders.

"Liam!" Fergus says, smiling warmly, at the same time that Oren yells "Uncle!"

Oren runs at me, barefoot, six years old and all enthusiasm. Unlike Fergus, he wears simple clothing, and a toy sword hangs from a belt he wears crossways across his chest, trying to mimic the way Fergus carries sword and shield when armed. I catch his outstretched arms and spin him, but not as energetically as I would outside, since I don't want to knock him into a pot of soup or, Maker forbid, Nan. Then I hoist him up onto my hip and look him in the fact.

"There were rats, uncle?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," I tell him in a solemn tone. "Enormous, ginormous, demon-rats."

Oren is thrilled by this and wiggles out of my grasp, drawing his sword with a flourish. "Did you murder them all!?"

"Yes," Aeron says. "Every last one. And threw them off the cliff for good measure."

"Oh," Oren says, and now sounds a bit disappointed. "None left for me?"

"I'm sorry, Oren," I tell him, dropping down so I can again address him face to face, which is somewhat difficult as he hops forward and back in a fencer's stance, jabbing at imaginary rats on the floor. "It's for the best, though. They were so large, they could have swallowed you in one bite."

"You know what I love about you?" Fergus asks over Oren's head, and I look up. "You never exaggerate."

I stand and we clasp hands.

"It's barely an exaggeration, my lord," Aeron says. He is standing by Nan now, drinking from a fresh skein and holding a scone in his other hand. "They were bog rats, some of the biggest I've seen. One in particular – it was almost half Madra's size."

"Ser Gilmore," Fergus says, chuckling, "I'm afraid you are even less credible than my little brother."

Aeron does his best to look chastened. "Alas."

"What brings you to the kitchen?" I ask. "Did mother send you to check on us?"

"No, actually, I'm here to bother Nan."

"Oh, you're never a bother, my lord," Nan says, positively beaming. Although she feels the need to dress up her affection for me and Aeron in bluster, Nan has always openly adored Fergus. This may have something to do with the fact that Fergus was markedly better behaved, never trying to sneak frogs and snakes into the kitchens, as Aeron and I did as children, or ale and servant girls out of it, as Aeron still does.

"You may change your tune when you hear my news, Nan," Fergus says. "Arl Howe just arrived-"

"Before lunch?" Nan exclaims, throwing her hands up. "His men aren't due until this evening! How in the bloody-"

"They're not here yet," Fergus interjects, and for a moment Nan looks relieved, but then he adds, "..and they won't be here today at all."

This really sets Nan off. How, she demands, is she supposed to work under these conditions? She's already got a dozen vats of soup going and bread to feed several hundred in the ovens, and what isn't cooking already has been prepared, but suddenly there are no mouths to feed.

Fergus follows her as she stomps away, trying to mollify her with little success. Oren watches for a moment in awe before turning back to me and brandishing his sword again.

"Iona is here," he remarks casually.

My chest seems to tighten, and I see Aeron simultaneously choke on the last of his scone and break into a smirk so gleeful that crumbs fall out of his mouth.

I turn immediately toward Fergus, but he is still busy trying to calm Nan.

"And how did you know to tell us that, young master?" Aeron asks Oren, when he is finished choking.

"Mama said so to Papa, and he said uncle would want to know, and then they told secrets."

"What kind of secrets?" Aeron winks at me.

"I don't know," Oren admits, indignant. "They wouldn't tell me."

"Well, I can tell you a secret of my own," Aeron says, and beckons Oren over.

I'm flushed now, and am looking to Fergus, hoping he'll calm Nan quickly so I can press him further. It's been more than a year since I last saw Iona, and although I hoped she might be coming with Lady Landra, I had no way to be sure.

"Your uncle," Aeron tells Oren in a stage whisper, "is _in loooooove_ with Iona."

"Oh," Oren remarks, suddenly disinterested. "Is that all?"

"Just out of curiosity," Aeron asks, "what sort of secret were you _hoping_ it would be?"

Oren shrugs, returning to his battle with the imaginary rats. "Something interesting."

"Oh, little man," Aeron chuckles, "how much you have to learn."

I've caught Fergus' attention now, and he is reluctantly walking back toward me.

Actually, other than Oren and Madra, both lost in their own private worlds, it seems I have everyone's attention. Aeron still hasn't wiped the crumbs from his chin, Nan is watching with genuine disapproval, and behind her, Cath is beaming at me. She and Iona were close once, I recall. Perhaps they still are.

"Swear you won't tell Mother you heard it from me," Fergus says gravely, locking eyes with me.

I nod, perhaps too vigorously, and Aeron snorts.

"And you," Fergus says, glaring at Aeron. "And you, too, Nan."

"I warned them, but did they listen?" Nan says, by way of assent. "Letting you all play with the rabbits, no good could come of it."

Behind Nan, Cath's face darkens briefly at Nan's use of the word rabbit. It's not a slur exactly, not like calling an elf a knife-ear; I know many humans think of rabbit as more of an affectionate nickname, but they say it like they're talking to a pet, not a person.

"She came in last night," Fergus tells me, "with Lady Landra and I think half their house. I wasn't up, but Oriana said there were at least a dozen people besides Landra. I think Mother put them up in the library, but she was fretting this morning about running out of room."

"Well, I'm sure we can find a place for Iona to sleep," Aeron suggests, but we both ignore him.

"Oriana saw her this morning at breakfast," Fergus continues, referring to his wife. "Apparently she's Landra's lady in waiting now?"

"I…I don't know."

It's true, I don't know. There's so much I don't know. How can it have been a year since I saw her?

"Well, you _do_ know how Mother will react, and she's already in a mood – so whatever you do, try to be discreet with your little affair."

Immediately, my face betrays my anger, I can see Fergus regrets his words as soon as they pass his lips. Something more than embarrassment, more like pain, crosses his face.

"It's not like that," I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

Surprising me, Fergus puts his hands on my shoulders. When I look back up, he is staring straight at me, his dark eyes full of empathy. "I know," he says, also softly. "I know, little brother. Forgive me, I spoke without thinking."

I nod, not trusting my voice with a response. For a moment or two we are quiet, before I remember there are others in the room, for whom this must be an awkwardly public display of private issues. Nan, thankfully, has hustled her servants to another corner of the kitchen, although I see Cath is throwing a worried look over her shoulder at me and Fergus. Meanwhile, Aeron has distracted my nephew with swordplay, wielding a soup spoon against Oren's toy.

Recognizing each of these gestures, and Fergus' as well, a feeling of warmth floods over me, a sense of belonging. These past few years have changed so much more than my age and my responsibilities, and with Aeron to become a Grey Warden in the face of dark tidings from the southern wilds, I know more change is coming, too. The start of an adventure, Aeron said earlier, and I don't grudge him his adventure. But beginnings are also endings, and I have never been one to embrace change.

And yet, in this moment, there is something changeless at play, something almost eternal. This is my home, made so by its inhabitants, family and otherwise: people who care for me and are cared for by me. Years after her departure, I still mourn Iona's absence; no doubt, I will miss Aeron's friendship for years to come. But Highever will always be my home, and even in the wake of tragedies, and even in the face of transitions, there is no small comfort in that knowledge.

"Well, get on," Nan says without looking at me. "We all know you'll be useless until you've seen her, so unless you have some other errand, you may as well go call on your sweet rabbit."

I nod, and step around my brother, who has been distracted by the continuing duel between Aeron and Oren. "Good luck," Fergus says as I pass.

Aeron winks at me over his opponent's head before blocking comically wide and taking a jab to the stomach.

I pass Nan last on the way to the door. She's continuing to ignore me, although I know she's watching me from the corner of her eye as she cracks the lid of an enormous pot and sniffs its contents. "Bloody hell," she mutters, replacing the lid. "All this soup and no bloody soldiers. Typical."


	4. Another Word for Lamentations

**CHAPTER TWO:** Another Word for Lamentations

 **I knock too hard on the door,** three strikes that sting my knuckles, and wait breathlessly atop the stairs leading up to the library's south wing. On the other side of the door is a hallway leading to several apartments, seldom used, too small for visiting nobility but occasionally offered to travelers like artists or clergy. If Fergus' report is accurate, they are occupied now by Lady Landra's attendants – Iona among them, I hope.

I still offer up a silent prayer that whoever answers my knock will be discrete. It's too much to hope that Iona herself will open the door. For all the nervous anticipation of the last few days, and the fevered imaginings on my walk from the kitchen to the library, I have no idea what I will say if she does, but at least it might spare us prying eyes and wagging tongues.

As shaky as I am, it's hard to judge how much time has passed, but I hear no movement inside. I count five breaths and then knock again, more slowly and deliberately this time, and still nothing stirs. I press my ear to the wood, and still hearing no sound, try the latch, only to find it locked from within.

Muttering curses, I walk back down to the library's main floor.

The library is still empty but for a handful of children, slightly older than Oren but stilly shy of adolescence; they are seated around an enormous oak table, which itself is set on a dais at the back of the library. It feels like only yesterday that Aeron and I sat there with our own fellow students, surrounded by quills and parchments and ink and small towers of thick, leather-bound books.

Unlike many I've visited, Highever's library is brightly lit, with a vaulted ceiling that separates the north and south wings and runs the length of the building. At the back of the library, above the oak study table, and at the front, above enormous ornate doors that open out to the courtyard, stained glass windows rise almost two full stories, to the peak of the red-tiled roof. Green carpet runs from door to dais, a walkway that bisects the sturdy shelves, which are built between the stone walls and the exposed wooden posts that support the floors of the wings.

As a child, this was one of the few places I visited willingly without Aeron. He could never stand books or studies, and avoided the library whenever possible. Although I joined Aeron in harassing our longsuffering tutor, Brother Aldous, even then I secretly enjoyed the act of learning. Not just learning, but reading, and not just reading but books themselves. Here, their smell fills the air, at once nostalgic and tantalizing, like the musty aroma of grass drying after a cut, but also warm like old spices.

At the bottom of the stairs, I turn into the stacks of books, absently running my hands along the spines of rowed and ordered books. So many memories between these stacked volumes…

...

 **Iona and I fell for each other in this library.** She shared my love affair with books, with their physical form, with the hand-inked illustrations, with the various calligraphies, with the art of written language, and – above all – with the knowledge the books contained.

Although we played together regularly as young children, I saw very little of Iona during my early school years. At the time, neither Aeron nor I had seen any particular use for girls, most of whom seemed to be interested in the womanly skills of sewing and simpering; they were certainly useless to us in our manly pursuits, which at the time were limited to fighting, belching, and frivolous mischief. For her part, Iona, like many elven children, she was put to work early, sometimes at her home in the Alienage, and sometimes by assisting her mother in the servants' duties; when we saw her it was only during lessons, which we shared only rarely.

As we moved into adolescence, Aeron in particular began to change his outlook on womenfolk, and developed a reputation for chasing skirts almost overnight. I was interested to hear his stories, but the interest was mostly academic, perhaps a bit voyeuristic, but not in any way relevant to my life. It wasn't until Iona began attending some of the same classes as me that she caught my attention. Even then, the only thing I noticed – at first, anyway – was our shared interest in learning.

Discussions during class led to conversations afterwards, most often in the library. We soon realized that we'd read many of the same books and poems, and that we shared a passion for history.

Naturally, the more I talked with her, the more I noticed how beautiful she was: golden hair, elegant facial features, emerald eyes just a bit larger than a human's, ears that rose to points instead of round lumps like mine, and the early hints of a woman's curves beneath her simple dresses and smocks. Her smile was infectious, her laugh intoxicating.

Iona was particularly fascinated with the history and culture of her people, before the Alienages. She was fascinated by records of a time, half a millennia past, when elves ruled a nation of their own, called The Dales, gifted to them by Andraste herself. Together, we learned that before the Dales, the elves were enslaved by the Tevinter Imperium, which had conquered an even older, greater elven empire that different records referred to variously as Arlathan – or sometimes _Ar La'than –_ and The _Elvhenen_.

This was not a topic that Brother Aldous taught, nor one that was encouraged among the elves of the Alienage, who clung to fragments of tradition passed down through generations, but had little interest in discovering the origin of those traditions. So that we were co-conspirators of a sort, uncovering forbidden knowledge, secrets to be shared only between ourselves.

What happened next was inevitable. I fell in love with her, with such certainty and finality that it might as well have been gravity.

...

 **Our first kiss was between these very shelves.** I was fifteen, she sixteen. The kiss had been building between us for years, but still, my heart stopped, held tight in the grip of fear and desperation and anticipation. I tell myself that I can still taste her, still smell her, as clearly as though the moment has not yet ended, but that's not the truth. The truth is that the memories haunt me, sensations at the edge of perception, close enough to be achingly familiar, but lost to the years that have passed.

After that kiss, we had almost a year together, casting each other smiles we thought no one else could see, stealing away on summer afternoons for kisses that lasted hours, curling up in front of untended fires in the winter and talking about dreams that never bore fruit.

Then fate took her from me, not long after I turned sixteen, and just days before Aeron and I took our titles and our duties.

After she left, we didn't see each other for a full year. In that time, my parents flatly refused to allow me to write her, and if she tried to write me, this was also prevented. At the time, only newly out of my studies, I was neither old enough nor experienced enough to figure out a way around them.

"Your affair must end," my father had told me simply, and not a little sadly, when I pressed the issue. His words crushed not only my heart but the illusion that my romance with Iona had been any sort of secret. Later, my parents explained this was not due to Iona's common birth, nor because she was an elf, but because the city had come too close to blood already during the events surrounding her departure. Any future I might find with Iona would be salt in wounds that my parents had fought hard to heal.

No doubt they believed another pretty girl would capture my heart soon enough, and although they never forced any matches on me, Aeron more than made up for their restraint.

Predictably, he was convinced that a tumble in the hay would solve my heartache. "It works for me," he said more than once. To my knowledge Aeron himself has never engaged in a relationship that lasted much longer than it took him to part a girl's knees - something he'd developed a knack for around the time I found myself falling in love with Iona – so why he felt qualified to give advice on heartbreak, I don't know.

...

 **I did not see Iona for more than a year.** Even then, we met only by chance, during the summer Landsmeet in Denerim. I was standing in a crowd, listening to my father debate the merits of new trade agreements with Orlais, and I shifted ever so slightly, moving weight from one foot to the other, and there she was, standing next to me, staring at me, her eyes fixed on mine, the faintest of smiles playing at the corners of her lips.

The sight of her, so much the same and yet so changed, froze me to the spot. I started to say her name, but she silenced me with a look; the entire hall was listening to my father with rapt attention, and I was ready to stammer out every feeling that had choked me and sustained me in the years since I lost her. Instead, she said all that was needed by slipping her hand in mine and standing beside me the length of the debate.

Whenever the crowd cheered or laughed, we could trade a few words, but only a few – just enough to know that her family was safe, that Landra was fair and even kind, that she was healing. Even if we'd had more time, I don't know what I could have said. The only thing that mattered were her last words, as the debate ended with thunderous applause for my father and angry glares from his opponent.

Iona leaned in to my ear and squeezed my hand and whispered, "I still miss you."

And then she was gone again.

...

 **Behind me in the library,** one ofthe heavy doors to the courtyard groans open, startling me from the most personal of memories. Self-conscious, I spin toward the sound, peering between the tops of books and bottoms of shelves to see a pair of squires trudging in, carrying schoolbooks slung over their shoulders.

"Did you do the reading?" asks the smaller of the two as they pass me by, earning a glower from his companion.

"Why would I?" the larger grumbles. "It's all so _bloody_ boring…"

I can't help smiling as I hear this.

The squires must be arriving for morning lessons, still delivered by Brother Aldous, who teaches language, history, and the arts to all children of school age, noble or common, just as he taught me and Aeron. That squires, pages, and the children of servants receive the same education as the young nobility is yet another oddity of Castle Highever, one due in equal measure to my mother and to Brother Aldous.

Brother Aldous has been a fixture in the castle since he tutored my father more than thirty years ago, and Father respects him deeply, treating him with deference even in court. Perhaps some of this is due to their history as student and teacher, but I suspect it has more to do with the brother's keen intellect and encyclopedic knowledge of history and theology.

"Knowledge is the beginning of wisdom," Father used to tell me endlessly, so often I hoped he'd choke on the words. That I resented this persistent advice, only to fall so deeply in love with books and scholarship myself, is an irony not lost on me.

If the brother's tutelage nurtured my father's studiousness, it is my mother's common birth that has influenced his egalitarian policies. I'm certain we are the butt of many a joke amongst other Ferelden noble houses, but there can be no denying that our servants are generally brighter than theirs – and more loyal besides.

After the squires pass, I step out onto the green carpet and glance up to the dais. The brother is nowhere to be seen, but that's not especially surprising; he often assigns work to be completed while he attends other duties, and his pupils learn early not to mistake absence for ignorance. It's almost as though the library's very stones whisper reports to him, and I cannot count the number of times Aeron and I were punished for mischief that we were certain had gone unwitnessed.

Brother Aldous' office takes up the bottom floor of one of two ornamental bell towers that flank the library's doors. The door is closed, but I can picture the desk, an island of tidiness in an ocean of discarded paper. Books on every subject, notepads, letters opened and unopened, boxes filled with records, volumes of poetry, stacks of unused parchment: these things and more were heaped into corners, piled on either side of the desk, and occupied all but two of the room's many chairs.

Only last year, I learned there is a trapdoor in the office ceiling, above the desk and a ladder that folds down, granting easy access to the second floor of the tower, which in turn leads to the library's northern wing. That wing contains the administrative archives, a record of all Highever's business that dates back more than five centuries.

Family legends claim that our ancestor, Sarim Cousland, built both the library and the chapel, which face each other across the courtyard, as dual memorials to Highever's previous lord, Bann Conobar Elstan. At the time, the Cousland family had served the Elstan line for generations, much as the Gilmores now serve us. After completing the memorial, Sarim Cousland assumed lordship of Highever, and the Cousland line has been unbroken ever since.

According to the tale, Elstan and most of his court were murdered in a fit of rage by the Bann's own wife, an infamous bog witch named Flemeth; the bards claim that evidence of her furious magic can be seen in scorch marks on the walls of the keep's great hall. If you ask me, these alleged scorch marks look more like the soot stains one would expect to accumulate from hundreds of years of smoke from wood fire places. As a child, though, I used to look at the marks and imagine them in the shapes of men, immolated in place by a raging witch, and feel shivers run down my back.

Brother Aldous told me later that while historical records indicate Bann Elstan was indeed murdered by a wife, they do not name the wife at all, let alone identify here as Flemeth, the witch of legend. Flemeth, the villainess of dozens of Ferelden folktales, is much better known than Elstan himself, and Aldous believes she was likely added to the story over time by bards to better entertain their audiences.

His analysis is good enough for me. The brother loves history and therefore the archives, and spends hours every day combing through old ledgers and accounts to piece together more of Highever's past. Since the archives, like the apartments opposite them, have windows overlooking the library floor, I suspect this explains why he always seemed almost supernaturally aware of any and all mischief Aeron and I attempted during our studies.

...

 **Opposite the brother's office,** at the base of the south bell tower, is a guest suite, which is where Lady Landra herself will be staying with her husband, Bann Loren of Caer Oswin, if he has joined her, and any other members of her family.

I consider knocking there, since Fergus told me Iona is now one of her ladies-in-waiting, but decide against it. Even if Landra or another family member is still in the suites when all the servants are missing, I'm not sure I want to see any of them. There is also the matter of Landra herself. Lady Landra Loren is one of Mother's oldest and dearest friends, and she has been kind to Iona, but she is also, politely speaking, quite enormous, extremely loud, and notoriously fond of wine and other indiscretions.

A year ago, at a Summerday celebration hosted by her husband, Landra cornered me and flirted shamelessly, either ignorant of or unconcerned with both my parentage and my obvious discomfort. When Aeron attempted to rescue me, she shifted her attentions to him with renewed vigor, practically draping herself over his shoulders, until her embarrassed husband had her escorted from the party. Since then, both Lady Landra and Bann Loren have seemed markedly uncomfortable around me and Aeron. It's a feeling I, at least, reciprocate.

...

 **After Landra embarrassed herself at the Summerday party,** Iona found me in the gardens, her enormous emerald eyes sparkling with laughter. With her blond hair tied back in a loose bun, dressed in a simple brown dress and a dark shawl, she could almost have stepped directly out of my memories.

We had seen each other earlier in the day, but it had only been little more than a glance. She was across a room, dressed in finery, her face a careful mask of pleasant deference, serving drinks to Bann Loren's guests. Of course, I'd been looking for her since arriving at Caer Oswin, and daydreaming for weeks before, and as soon as I saw her, everything else faded. Other than fending off Landra, and pulling Aeron away from an argument that was straying dangerously close to a duel, I remember nothing of the party after that glimpse and before we met in the garden.

Unlike Highever, which was built on coastal plains with the castle occupying a lone promontory, Caer Oswin sits on the side of a mountain, and the gardens look out over smaller peaks and thick forests. Only on the eastern horizon do the hills and trees give way to the rolling farmland of the central bannorn, and when Iona found me, the sun was already behind the mountain's peak.

"I hear my mistress is trying to steal you away," Iona told me when we broke our long kiss, laughter still in her eyes.

I said I wasn't tempted, which would have been an understatement in any circumstances, but doubly so with Iona finally pressed against me, my arms around her waist, her hands at the back of my neck, her lips moving closer again.

...

 **That night in the garden** was not the first time Iona and I had seen each other since we held hands so desperately at the Landsmeet. After the first year of her absence, things had gotten easier, in more ways than one.

Knowing she was safe, and knowing she still missed me, helped with the daily heartache. So did the steady increase in my responsibilities, which left little time for lovesick sighs. More importantly, the duties themselves necessitated greater personal independence and a measure of authority, within the castle and the Teyrnir. It was enough for me to ensure we could write to each other.

Our correspondence, coupled with the friendship between mother and Lady Landra and the business ties between my father and Bann Loren, made it easy to arrange occasional meetings like the one at Caer Oswin. My parents are not fools, and knew all along what I was up to, but they seem to have grudgingly accepted that I cannot simply let Iona go, no matter the political dangers our relationship might pose. Until now, they have carefully avoided any circumstance that might return Iona to Highever, but have not otherwise obstructed our relationship.

So we see each other when we can, usually once every few months, sometimes for a full day or night, more often for only a few minutes. So far, it's been enough. It has to be.

And perhaps that's all I can ask for. There was never any question of marrying Iona – even at fifteen, in the afterglow of our first kiss, we knew that – but thanks to Fergus, I need not marry at all. His union with Oriana has already produced one heir, in Oren, with another on the way, ensuring the Cousland lineage.

All I want is to find her. Since the first news of a mobilization, when I should have turned my mind to matters of state, I hoped she would come; this morning, when Aeron told me he would join the Wardens, I knew she must, because only with her could I lower my guard and admit that his absence, stacked upon hers, just might break me. To be so close to her now, especially in this place, with all its memories…and not find her?

I draw in a long breath, trying to regain control of thoughts and emotions. Standing here won't do any good. It's not a large castle; we'll see each other soon enough, and even if we can only smile at each other for now, the sight of her alone will be a luxury too long denied.

...

 **For the second time in only a few minutes,** the library doors startle me out of daydreams. Standing just outside the entrance to the guest suite, I have to jump out of the way as the door swings inward, and am almost bowled over by Aeron, who stops short, obviously as surprised to find me here as I am to be found.

"Thought I might find you here," Aeron says. "Just didn't figure you'd be lurking behind a door." He sniffs the air with distaste. "I'll never understand what you see in this old place."

There's no way to articulate the honest answer. Instead, I ask if all the books are triggering his allergy to learning.

"Absolutely!" He feigns a shudder. "So much knowledge, trying to creep in even through my nose! That shit's contagious, you know."

"If it is, you must have been born immune," I reply automatically.

"Ha! No doubt." He looks around the library, nodding at the students who have looked up to see the cause of the commotion. "Anyway, your father sent me for you. Well, not really – he sent a guard to send me for you – but he wants to see us both in the hall." Then, more quietly: "Did you find her?"

I shake my head.

Aeron claps me on the shoulder hard, the sound echoing up to the vaulted ceiling. "Well, come on then. We'll see what your father wants, and then find her. We know she's not in the library, and we know she's not in the basements, so it shouldn't be too hard."

He pulls the door open again and beckons me through. The chapel is opposite the library, and together their front walls form the east and west edge of the courtyard. A tall stone curtain wall is the courtyard's southern border, and the keep rises to the north. Small alleys on either side of the library, chapel, and keep provide access to the rest of the inner ward, which is comprised of the barracks and training yard on one side of the keep, and stables, a kennel, and an armory on the other.

The courtyard is almost empty – the calm before the storm, I suppose. The bulk of the army is already assembled just south of the city walls, already almost a thousand strong, and those banns and arls who will accompany their men south to battle fill the keep's guest rooms; below, in the city, the inns are crowded with lesser nobles, heirs and stewards, generals and guard captains, freeholders and mercenaries.

All are waiting for the order from my father to march south for the king, and my father in turn has been waiting for Arl Rendon Howe and his troops to arrive from Amaranthine, the largest and easternmost of the vassal states that make up my father's Teyrnir. Now that the Arl is here – albeit without his troops or his family, apparently, and without the usual pomp and circumstance that marks the arrival of such an esteemed ally – something is bound to happen. If there is not an assembly soon and a feast tonight, it will only be because the army has already marched. Either way, the courtyard won't be empty long.

For now, though, the only other person here is Brother Aldous. He is standing directly across the courtyard, in front of the chapel, his back to us. He is slightly frailer than in my memories, but he stands as he always has: back rigid, shoulders square, hands clasped at the small of his back. A tight roll of papers is clasped in one of his hands, and a small hammer and leather pouch hang from his belt, the belt itself pulled tight over a thick yellow sash worn over a hooded brown overcoat. The Chantry's sunburst emblem is stitched just below either shoulder of the overcoat, and on the breast of a red undershirt.

On impulse, I start across the courtyard toward the brother.

Behind me, I hear Aeron sigh in frustration. I can imagine him rolling his eyes behind my back. We are due at an audience with my father, I still haven't found Iona, and yet here I am, striking off to talk to an old teacher.

There's a method to my madness, however. Just as Nan rules the keep from the basements to the dining halls, there is little that goes on in the rest of the castle, and especially the inner ward, that escapes the brother. It's a safe bet he knows where I might find Iona. Even if he doesn't, it's been several weeks since I last spoke to the brother, whose company I seem to enjoy more with every passing year, and it won't hurt to pass a few minutes with him before continuing to Father's great hall.

"Humor me," I tell Aeron, quietly, over my shoulder, and I hear him follow after a reluctant pause.

As I approach, I see the brother is studying the Chanter's Board, a large, ornately-framed set of wood panels that hang beside the chapel door.

I'm told that throughout Thedas, in every town or village where the Chantry has a presence, you can find Chanter's Boards. They serve as a community's hub for news, prayers, contracts, sales and services, and posters advertising rewards for fugitives and missing persons. Anyone can post anything to the board, although the brothers who maintain the boards are vigilant against inevitable pranks and blasphemies; the brothers also assist those who cannot read or write in posting and reading.

The board sees steady use, but for the last week, it's been common to see three or four people at a time standing in front of the board, and rare to see it unattended. New announcements and orders from father's court have been posted almost daily, but the focus has mostly been on two documents nailed to the middle of the board. Both are transcribed copies of other letters – the first, of the Grey Wardens' message to my father, the second of King Cailan's order to draw up the army.

No doubt both letters were intended solely for my father and his advisors, but neither made this explicit, and Father has little use for secrecy; he removed only a few lines about troop movements and state of fortifications at Ostagar from the copies, which by now will probably have reached every Chanter's Board in the Teyrnir. Father has told me believes his people should be kept informed whenever possible, and he justifies this philosophy with a more pragmatic observation: bad news only becomes worse when repeated as gossip.

Personally, I have misgivings about this approach, now and in the past, but I am not the Teyrn, and so far there have been no consequences – no one is rioting, and there has been no wave of refugees fleeing the rumored Blight. If anything, since the notices went up, the ranks of our militias have swelled and the Chantries – the one here in the castle's inner ward, and several more in the city below – have been filled with the faithful at prayer. I've even noticed a decline in the volume of frivolous claims and spiteful misdemeanors brought before me at petty court, so it seems my misgivings may be groundless. They often are, when it comes to Father's peculiarities.

As I approach Brother Aldous, I wonder if he is reading the letters. If so, it can't be for the first time, but he wouldn't be the only one who's had to read them more than once. I have, if only to reaffirm this is all real – history really is being made, the world really is shifting beneath our feet.

Instead, I see he is leaned slightly forward, brows furrowed, his focus is on a new message, scrawled with what looks like charcoal, across both of the copied letters:

 _And so is the Golden City blackened_

 _With each step you take in my Hall._

 _Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting._

 _You have brought Sin to Heaven_

 _And doom upon all the world._

...

 **Despite Brother Aldous's best efforts,** I am not a particularly religious man. Unless duty requires it, I rarely attend services at the Chantry, and I have not sung the Chant itself since I was a child. But I recognize this passage immediately: it's one of the most famous passages in the all the Chant of Light, and one of the few passages that Brother Aldous insisted I memorize when I was still his student.

For many years, until well past an age when my youth could excuse my ignorance, I believed the canticle, like so many others, was named after one of the many disciples who followed Andraste, the Bride of the Maker, before her death and ascension. When Brother Aldous discovered my mistake, he corrected me with more than a hint of irritation: "Threnodies is just another word for lamentations."

Even when my ignorance clearly astonished him, Aldous was generally a patient teacher when it came to secular matters; he became genuinely frustrated only when students demonstrated ignorance or, worse, apathy to matters of faith.

Still, he was persistent, and with the peculiar glint that always appears in his eyes when discussing The Chant, Aldous explained that the Canticle of Threnodies is uniquely named, because a Threnody is not merely a lament, but a dirge composed upon the death of a loved one. A threnody is personal, he told me, unique to the person lost and specific to the grief of those left behind.

"A fitting title for the chant," he said.

"Because of the Blights?" I asked, confused. The blights were a punishment, not a loss; one might sing a dirge for all who had died in the four blights, but the passage seemed to me less a lamentation than a warning.

"No." He shook his head, his lips tightening. "Threnodies does not begin by discussing the Blights, or end with such a discussion, for that matter."

At that point in my education, I'd read the entire Canticle more than once, and had sung many of its passages in the Chantry with my family. My prior knowledge of a subject never deterred the brother from a lecture, especially on a topic for which he felt as much passion as he did faith.

"The Canticle's first chapter tell the creation story," Aldous began.

...

 **Before our world** , the Maker spoke another into existence: the Fade, a realm of magic, populated with His first children, spirits created in His own image. At the Fade's center was the Golden City, where the Maker made His throne. The spirits marveled at their realm, which they could shape with nothing more than their own will. The first children worshipped the Maker and filled the Golden City with praise, but He was dissatisfied with his first creation, because the spirits could only reflect what He had already shown them.

Our own world, Thedas, came next, built for us, His second children, in whom He placed a spark of His own divine creativity. Between these two worlds, He set the Veil, so that men could not see or enter the Fade except in their dreams. But when mankind slept, our thoughts and prayers flowed through the fade, until they found the Golden City and the Maker's ears. In our waking hours we shaped our world with imagination and ingenuity, to fit our own needs, and we praised the Maker for His gifts.

Among the first children, however, some watched with jealousy, and in ages long past, tempted men away from the Maker, teaching their new followers to draw on the Fade and work magic of their own. The Maker cast these spirits out of the Fade, imprisoning them deep in the earth itself, but still they whispered in the hearts of men, and the people of Tevinter conquered all of Thedas in the name of their false gods, until all of Thedas worshipped the Old Gods of the Tevinter Imperium, and no one remembered their own Maker.

This was the First Sin, and the Maker turned away in sorrow, for his first children could not create, and his second children created sin itself.

Even then, the Old Gods were not content. They taught the mage-kings of Tevinter the forbidden arts of blood magic, and guided them to breach the Veil itself, and enter the Golden City. In their hubris, the magisters sought to usurp heaven itself, but instead they destroyed it. They were cast out by the Maker Himself, twisted and cursed by their own corruption, and they returned as monsters, the first of the darkspawn.

...

" **Their trespass was the Second Sin,"** Aldous concluded, and by the time he'd finished, sadness had clouded the familiar joy of imparted knowledge from his eyes. "The Golden City is dark, and the Maker's throne is empty. As terrible as they are, Blights are only moments in history, one consequence among many. The Maker's absence is something we should feel in every moment, throughout allof history. _That_ , pup, is what we should truly mourn."

He looked away, then, and I remember glancing at the other students, and finding that even Aeron had been listening with rapt attention, captured by the brother's intensity.

For a while, all of us were silent while the brother stared away, lost in thought. Eventually, he sighed, and, speaking to no one in particular, asked "What would it be like? To know our prayers are heard?"

...

 **I do not share Aldous's sorrow,** but the memory has stuck with me through the years. It was the first time I really understood the tragedy at the core of the Chant of Light. That moment has colored my perception of Brother Aldous ever since, and of our faith as a whole.

...

" **I didn't write this, in case you were wondering."** Brother Aldous speaks conversationally, but without looking away from the charcoal message.

"I – came over to say good morning, actually."

"Well, then, a good morning to you, too, pup."

 _Pup._ A childhood nickname, one that was used only by my parents, Nan, and the brother. Although I'm nearly halfway through my twentieth year, I still can't seem to shake it off. At this point, I suppose I never will.

"Have you seen it already?" he asks, turning to me for the first time and gesturing at the holy graffiti. "I've been thinking of this verse since I first saw the Wardens' letter. Apparently I'm not the only one."

"Looks new," Aeron says, taking his turn to lean in.

"It wasn't here when I came from morning prayers, but that was several hours ago."

"Making you the prime suspect," Aeron remarks, straightening and pretending to glare suspiciously. "You were a good tutor, but you've always seemed a bit _religious_ , you know, brother. And this" – he points dramatically at the verse – "is _clearly_ the work of religion!"

"If I were truly such a good tutor," Aldous replies neutrally, "then I expect I would not encounter such insouciance in my pupils." The brother pauses a moment and when Aeron's brows scrunch at the word _insouciance,_ a slight smile creeps across Aldous' face. "You can look it up later, Ser Gilmore."

It takes Aeron a moment to realize that the brother is toying with him, but when he does he throws his head back and laughs. "You always did get the better of me," he admits at last, still smiling.

"My many years of toil are no doubt the only reason you can write your own name and tie your own laces, and I'm pleased to say it has not been in vain. I'm told you've grown into a rather admirable young man."

"Oh," Aeron chuckles, a flush spreading between his freckles, "I don't know about all that. But I do know how to tie my own laces. And wipe myself, as well."

The brother crinkles his nose, and now Aeron has scored a point in their bizarre rapport.

"Some things," I point out, "never change."

"Indeed." The brother sighs, and looks around the courtyard, then back at me. "If you're not really here to harass an old man about some scribbles on the Chanter's Board, I assume you're looking for your friend, Iona?" A smile creeps into the corners of the brother's lips. "Some things never change, after all."

I smile. He's always seen right through the both of us – through everyone, maybe.

"She was among Lady Landra's retinue when Her Grace paid homage at the Chantry, maybe an hour ago," the brother says. "I'm not certain where they were going next, but two rather ill-mannered young ladies at the back of sanctuary whispered so loudly it was impossible not to overhear them, and it seemed they thought their next destination might be a visit with the Teyrna. Neither of the young ladies were Iona, obviously."

"Thank you, brother."

He inclines his head. "Of course. Was there something else on your mind, as well?"

Memories of his lesson about the Canticle of Threnodies are still fresh, but I'm not in the mood to discuss religion, so I tell him I saw his pupils in the library.

"They all look so young," I add. "I remember lessons like they were yesterday, it's just hard to believe we were ever so…small.

"You all look young to me," he chuckles, "but I suppose they are a bit smaller than you too. There should be a handful of them in there by now. They were doing their reading, I hope?"

"They looked more studious than we ever were," Aeron confirms.

"You were both a pleasure," Aldous says, before turning back to the Chanter's Board. "But you did require more looking after than these particular students. I can leave them to their reading for quite some time before I have to worry about anyone climbing the shelves or putting snakes under my door."

"You can't prove the snake was mine!" Aeron exclaims delightedly.

"No, of course not."

"His name was Count Slippy, I think," Aeron admits, still delighted.

"Well, not having to deal with 'Count Slippy,'" the brother says wryly, "I have a bit more time now. I've taken over the Chanter's Board for Sister Clara. A relatively easy duty, until this week, at least."

He holds up the roll of papers he'd held behind his back, showing off a mismatched jumble of papers and parchments. The brother begins to leaf through the notices he's rescued. Some have messages written in a steady hand, but most contain only a few, crudely scrawled words. Some are only pictograms.

"The guards just nailed the Wardens' missive over all these postings, and the King's order, as well," he says. "I had quite a time getting all of them out from under, and now I wonder if it was even worth my effort. Someone needs a horse but has a donkey to trade, someone else asks for prayers for an unnamed nephew's wedding prospects. It all seems to pale in importance, doesn't it?"

He shuffles the stack and rolls it back up, before sliding it into a pocket on the front of his robes and focusing again on the verse written in charcoal.

" _Doom upon all the world,_ " he quotes, "and here I am, tending to requests for chickens."

"So, Brother," Aeron says, his tone serious now. "You think there really is a Blight?"

Aldous looks surprised. "Wardens do not prepare for a Blight idly, and they are certainly making preparations. They are here for recruits, I hear." He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and then draws in another; I realize he's steeling himself. "Will they take you both?" he asks.

The question hangs between me and Aeron for a moment, and the brother's unease grows as we each wait for the other to answer.

"I know they have asked," he presses. "They would be fools not to."

Reluctantly, Aeron nods. "They...they asked, and I have agreed."

Aldous looks at me, and all I can do is shrug.

"Your father refused?" Aldous guesses, and when I shrug again he squeezes my shoulder before letting go. "I'm sorry, pup," he says, sounding relieved, "but your father is right to deny their request."

"I - I'm not even sure they asked," I admit, glancing sidelong at Aeron.

"Ah," Aldous says, nodding.

The truth is, I know they didn't ask. The Grey Wardens are elite warriors, not foot soldiers or clerks, and they choose their recruits accordingly. I'm skilled with a bow and arrow, and can hold my own with swords, but Aeron is a master with weapons of every kind. He's won recognition in the last dozen tournaments he's entered, and not just here in Highever, but throughout Ferelden. Ser Gilmore may be my bodyguard and seneschal, but his name is far better known than my own.

So it's no surprise that Aeron was summoned to meet with Duncan without me, and no surprise that the Grey Warden had offered him a place in the order. It's also no surprise that Aeron accepted. He has had other offers, from other noble families and from professional mercenary companies, but he turned those down for the same reason he accepted the Warden's offer – the same ideal that drives his family and mine: duty.

"I should have guessed," Aldous is saying. "The Wardens have few enough friends in Ferelden. They would not risk alienating your father by conscripting you."

I glance at Aeron to see if he knows what the brother means, but he looks puzzled.

"What do you mean?" I ask. "The Wardens are heroes."

Aldous sighs, betraying a hint of familiar impatience. "Apparently you two paid even less attention than I hoped. I doubt either of you has time for a lecture on history?"

"Sorry, brother," Aeron says, smiling. "The Teyrn sent me to retrieve Liam, and you've both distracted me long enough from my task."

" _Hmph_ ," Aldous says. "Then it's enough for now that the Couslands have always been the Wardens' allies, something that cannot be said of most noble families. When this is all over, you can come and find me if you really have the interest." By his tone, it's clear he doubts we will.

Neither Aeron nor I answer, and in the silence, I can hear the clash of steel blades on wooden shields from behind the barracks as the drills finishing up. Doors open and close near the gate in the curtain wall, crows call out on the battlements, and high above us, at the top of the keep, banners crack in the breeze. I can smell herbs, slow-cooked meat, and baking bread from the kitchens, the scents mixing with the dry smell of dust from the training ground and the fragrance of flowers blossoming early on the cherry trees that ring the courtyard. It is all familiar to me, the sounds and smells of my home, and for the second time this morning, the moment feels eternal.

But in the distance, I hear my father's soldiers marching in step in the outer ward; commands are being shouted by ranking officers, and cadences are being sung, the rhythmic call-and-answer of men marshalling for war.

Perhaps not doom, but change, certainly, is coming.

Aeron and I shift, about to be on our way, searching for the right words to bid Aldous farewell.

"The road ahead…" Aldous begins suddenly, before trailing off. He seems to be searching for words, and when he looks up again I'm surprised to see he is struggling to keep back tears. He sucks in a long breath, and then looks directly at Aeron, reaching up with frail hands that he rests on Aeron's broad shoulders.

"May the Maker watch over you," he says, and it sounds like a warning as much as a blessing. "May He guide your feet and your blade, Ser Gilmore."

Then he drops his hands and begins to quote the Chant of Light, speaking slowly and rhythmically, so that he almost sings the words: "Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written."

The words are from the Canticle of Benedictions, I believe, a traditional blessing upon warriors, almost as well known as the passage from Threnodies.

Aeron thanks the brother uncertainly.

"And you, pup." Aldous turns to me, and again I can see relief in his eyes, but also, I think, pity. "The path set before you is no less arduous, and if history is any guide, it may be no less bloody. Your people will need you here."

It seems the brother has also heard, or guessed, that the city is to be left in my care while Father and Fergus march south with the army. I have no great wish to join the Wardens, nor any pressing desire to test myself on a battlefield, but it is impossible not to feel shame when I am told to remain behind and play governor while those I love march into danger.

"Highever needs careful stewardship in such dark times," Aldous continues. "The people will look to you for guidance and protection, and more may be asked of you if the battles in the south do not go well. You should not think your path less honorable than Ser Gilmore's."

I nod, not trusting my voice. Brother Aldous's words are offered as a kindness, and no doubt sincerely, but they only add weight to my guilt and depth to my sense of loss.


	5. Duty Weighed Against Duty

**CHAPTER THREE:** Duty Weighed Against Duty

" **He always did like you better,"** Aeron says, gesturing behind and below, toward the chanter's board.

We're climbing the wide stone staircase that rises sharply from the courtyard to a landing outside the keep's third floor. Enormous wooden doors on the landing are the only public access to the keep, and open into the great hall, the seat of my father's court.

"You saw how he was acting," Aeron persists. "He thinks the whole world is about to be swallowed up in darkspawn, and he obviously thinks _I'm_ doomed – but then, he's been predicting I'd meet a bad end as long as I can remember."

"Well, you can't exactly blame him."

"Exactly. I was a regular little shit. Probably still am. Which is why you can't blame him for being glad you're staying here, seeing as he thinks there's a Blight on."

"Are you _trying_ to rub salt in the wound?" I ask, but without animosity.

"Have I ever not?"

"Fair point."

We've reached the landing now. Two of my father's guardsmen are leaning against the hard stone of the tower. Their shields bear the Cousland family crest, setting them apart from soldiers or constables, denoting their service to my family directly rather than Highever as a whole. Each guard rests a halberd against his shoulder and carries a sword at the belt. Crossbows and quivers lean nearby. Both men nod casually to Aeron and I, but do not stir otherwise.

The landing is fortified, with high parapets flanking the staircase and continuing along the walkways that stretch out to the keep's corners and then around the sides, meeting the inner curtain wall's sturdy ramparts at the back of the keep. The ramparts similarly fortified at each of the inner ward's four corners, and on either side of the gate at the southern end of the courtyard. From any point on the ramparts, you can look down on the outer wards, bustling with servants, soldiers, and tradesmen, who move among buildings, some thatch-roofed and others built in stone against the lower, outer curtain wall.

Outside that wall, the city of Highever stretches east and west, bordered by palisades and riverbanks and divided by the Alienage and port district to the north. To the south, the city gives way to patchwork fields that stretch unbroken to the horizon. From here, I can just see the tent city that has sprung up in the midst of the fields, quartering the army while it prepares for the march to Ostagar.

"Besides," Aeron continues, "with my luck, there's no Blight at all, and I'll spend the rest of summer wandering through swamps fighting off bug bites and poisonous snakes."

I snort and shake my head.

"I'm serious!" Aeron does sound earnest now. "Listen, when a southerling complains it's to let you know he's got a thicker cock than you, and more hair on his chest, and that his life is so hard you couldn't possibly survive a day in his shoes. It's not because shit's actually any worse in the south than it is here. I'm about as prideful a northerner as you'll find, and my ego can't hold a candle to a southerling's. A silver says the refugees just had one too many bad planting seasons, and they're looking for greener pastures up north – but the only way they can figure to save face is to say there's a Blight on."

Aeron slips into a caricatured facsimile of the southerling dialect, deep-voiced and over-enunciated: "Maker, you know, we just _hate_ to leave our manly, miserable existence, but, Andraste's tits, _darkspawn_. Darkspawn _everywhere!_ Even with our enormous cocks and impressively hairy chests, we couldn't fight them off, so we had _no choice_ but to leave our shacks behind and come up north, where it just _happens_ to be so much nicer…"

His impression draws chuckles from the two guards. I can't help smiling either.

"I'll take your bet," I say after a moment. " _If_ there's no Blight, you'll die from wounded pride before you die from boredom. Imagine your shame – joining the Grey Wardens, the highest calling of heroes – only to return with no glory?"

The guards chuckle again.

"It'll kill you, Aeron, so I think my silver is safe either way."

Behind us, the hall's door swings outward, and now the guards do brace, hoisting their shields and halberds, in case the doors open for my father. Instead, another of the guards steps out, hand up to block the sun. He's followed closely by the younger of the two Grey Wardens.

"The Teyrn sent me to find you two," the guardsman tells us on his way to the stairs. "Easy job, I guess. Anyhow, you're both wanted in the hall, milords." Message delivered, the guardsmen begins to descend the steps.

The Warden, however, pauses at Aeron's side. This is the first time I've seen him up close, and I realize he's younger than Aeron or I, no older than eighteen. His blond hair is cropped short, in the style of constabulary or Templars, and his hands and neck bear scars, but his face is smooth and unworn.

"Ser Gilmore? I hear you're to join us," the Warden says. His accent marks him as Ferelden, probably from the western lakes or Redcliffe.

Aeron, half inside the hall's threshold, turns and nods. "So I'm told."

"Well, don't get your hopes up, it's not all it's cracked up to be," the warden says with a crooked smile, and I'm not sure if he's joking or not. "But don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you."

The Warden pauses and seems to notice Aeron's stature and broadsword for the first time. He clears his throat. "Not that you look like you need it. I'm Alistair, by the way. I'll be helping you and the other recruits until–" Alistair stops speaking abruptly, looking mortified.

"Until…?" Aeron asks, clearly unimpressed.

"Well, _until_ ," Alistair mutters, blushing and looking down at his feet. "Duncan can tell you more, it's really…not my place." Awkward silence stretches for several seconds, and then Alistair offers a weak smile, face still bright red. "Well, _this_ has obviously been my finest moment, but I do want to assure you that we're not all as adept at putting our feet in our mouths as I am."

Neither of us can manage a response.

"I, ah, won't keep you any longer. I do look forward to working with you, though. For what that's worth..." Alistair shuffles past Aeron and beats a hasty retreat down the stairs. We watch almost until he reaches the bottom.

"Well…shit," Aeron mutters at last. Then he elbows me and grins cheerfully. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"

"Of course you are," I say, shaking my head in mock disgust. "I _knew_ you'd find a way to weasel out of paying up."

...

 **Much is made of Ferelden pragmatism.** Our practicality is a source of national pride, and we are endlessly amused by the scorn our Orlesian neighbors lavish upon our perceived lack of sophistication. "Mud Kings" and "Dog Lords," they call us – and it is true that we Fereldens, from peasant to king, are often dirty, and rarely far from our Mabari. It is also true that we tend to spurn most luxuries; even beloved hounds, adored as family pets, must earn their keep, and are used for hunting, defense, and even warfare.

All the same, even the most apt of stereotypes comes with exceptions, and just as I doubt that Orlesians truly spend all their waking hours simpering behind masks at extravagant masquerade balls, we Fereldens do permit ourselves the occasional flourish. Nowhere, I think, is this more evident than in the halls of our castles, where the business of civic government is conducted beneath the symbols of our history and our values.

The great hall in Castle Highever is no exception. It is by far the largest room in the keep, occupying an entire level, and the tallest as well, with ceilings nearly twice as high as those on any other floor. Green banners hang from the rafters, emblazoned with the Cousland heraldry, and blue banners as well, bearing the crest of Highever, a pale green raindrop behind crossed spears. The wood floors are polished regularly, as are the benches and tables arranged on either side of the room.

A thick carpet runs down the room's center, from the wooden doors to a dais; another table, longer than the others, rests on the dais, and behind it, a high-backed oak throne. Exposed wooden beams rise to the ceiling at intervals along the side walls, and on each one a torch is mounted above a shield bearing the family insignia of a lord who has sworn fealty to Highever's Teyrn. Portraits of past Teyrns and the Banns who preceded them hang between the beams, flanking tall windows. The windows themselves are imported glass, cut into shapes that fit perfectly into ornate patterns of wrought-iron that wind between the frames like thorny vines.

Behind the dais, an enormous fireplace occupies much of the back wall, sharing a chimney with the kitchen below and the living quarters above. The fire burns year-round, day and night, tended by Nan's small army of servants, a dramatic backdrop when the Teyrn sits on his throne.

...

 **As Aeron and I enter the hall** , my father is on the dais but not the throne. His back is to us, and he is half-seated at the edge of the long table.

The judicial hearings in the outer ward must have gone long, because he is still wearing court clothes: a short-waisted white doublet, the back embroidered in green with the family crest, over a dark blue tunic and breeches. He wears the family longsword on his hip, with the blade exposed. In spite of the formal attire, my father appears at ease. He is laughing, his attention on a stocky, silver-haired man who stands on the other side of the table, nearer the fire.

"Speak for yourself, Howe," my father says, still laughing.

"Be that as it may, my lord," says Howe, "even _you_ must admit, we had a lot less grey in our hair then. And we marched to fight Orlesians, not monsters."

"At least the smell will be the same!" Father say. This provokes uproarious laughter from both of them, so much that I gather it must be an old joke.

"Did you know Howe would be here?" Aeron mutters with distaste.

"Just keep a civil tongue, if you can," I whisper back. Arl Rendon Howe is not a man to be trifled with, and holds enormous sway in Father's court. Father is unaware of the bad blood between Aeron and the Arl, and it would be better for everyone if he does not learn of it.

"I will if he does," Aeron replies, which isn't exactly promising.

Arl Howe is perhaps my father's oldest friend. They met as young men, during the last years of the long, bloody rebellion against Orlesian occupation. They served together under the King Maric Theirin, the father of our current monarch, and were with him when he finally overthrew the Orlesian's puppet government. Father never speaks of the war, but piecing together history lessons with castle gossip and bards' tales, I gather their bond was forged in blood during Battle of White River, many years before victory was finally won.

Surprised by a massive force of elite Orlesian chevaliers, King Maric's northern army was forced into a tactical retreat. Father and Howe remained behind, leading a few hundred militia in a rearguard action to buy time for the remainder of the army. They chose to make their stand at a ford in the White River, and stand they did. For two days and two nights, the water ran red, until fewer than fifty defenders remained. Even then, the songs say, my father had to be dragged from the river by Howe, who had received word that the bulk of the army was safely away.

How much of this is truth and how much is legend, I don't know. The only thing my father has ever told me about the battle is that he was lucky to survive, and lucky to have fought beside a friend as loyal as Howe.

"Pup!" My father calls out, noticing us. "Come in, boys, come in, I didn't see you there."

As we continue toward the dais, I realize the older Grey Warden, Duncan, is in the hall as well. He's leaning casually against the stone just to one side of the hearth, half-hidden by one of the exposed beams. The light from the fire casts him in shadows, explaining why I didn't see him before.

"Howe," Father says cheerfully, "you remember my son, of course, and Ser Gilmore?"

"Liam," Howe says with a half-smile, which is more than he offers Aeron, to whom he merely nods curtly.

"A pleasure as always," I say, inclining my head respectfully as I deliver the lie with practiced familiarity. Father may hold Howe in high regard, but I share Aeron's animosity; I just hide it better.

"You've grown since I saw you last," Howe says, choosing what's undoubtedly the least original greeting from the old to the young that mankind has yet devised. "Your father tells me you will be stewarding Highever, while the men march south?"

His remark is delivered in innocent tones, but the implication of cowardice seems clear. Two can play the game of words, however.

"So I'm told," I reply neutrally. "Will your family be joining us?"

"No," Howe says, brows furrowing slightly, no doubt suspecting my intent. "They remain in Amaranthine, as far from the fighting as I can manage."

"I hope they're well, my lord," I say. "I recalled that Delilah fell ill just prior to your visit last summer. I had hoped she might join us."

Howe regards me with a sour expression for the briefest of moments before looking down and adjusting a decorative silver pendant, a pin in the shape of a bear that fastens his putrid yellow cloak at the shoulder.

I can practically feel Aeron's glare burning the back of my neck. In fairness to him, it's downright hypocritical to provoke Howe when I advised Aeron against it moments ago, but the man has that effect on me.

My father, blissfully ignorant, is all smiles. "Once this unpleasantness is behind us, I'm sure we'll see her, Pup – and the rest of your family as well, Howe. A dance, perhaps this winter? My wife would love nothing more."

"Of course," Howe says to my father, but his lips have gone a bit white, and he has shifted his posture so that he doesn't risk even glancing at Aeron.

Two years ago, on one of his regular visits to Highever, the Arl brought along his youngest daughter, Delilah. She and I are the same age, and I believe father's hope was that she and I would fall for each other, uniting the families and putting to rest my affair with Iona in one fell stroke.

Delilah was pretty, and very shapely, but that was the extent of her charm, at least as far as I was concerned. She wore her noble birth on her sleeves, simpering and mincing about the castle with a judgmental eye. My disinterest of the tacit matchmaking was polite but complete, and I suspect that alone may have begun the souring of my relationship with Arl Howe.

Delilah's charms may have been lost on me during the visit, but they were definitely not lost on Aeron. With his broad shoulders, flaming red hair, and roguish smile, he's never had to work hard to find his way between a girl's legs, and Delilah was no exception. Aeron deflowered her before she'd been in Highever three nights. Or bedded her, at least, as Aeron insisted then – and still insists – she was no virgin.

Falling victim to uncharacteristically bad luck, Aeron was caught in her chambers, in the act, by one of Howe's family bodyguards. He might have escaped a beating if he'd been appropriately penitent before the Arl, who raged at him for impugning Delilah's virtue. But, predictably, Aeron chose to respond to the accusation by sharing his opinions of Delilah's supposed virtue. Equally predictably, this precipitated a savage beating from Howe's guards.

Whether he deserved it or not, the beating was patently unlawful. Unlike most of noble families who make up the Teyrnir, the Gilmores have sworn fealty to the Cousland family specifically, rather than to Highever as a whole. Thus, legally and traditionally, Aeron quite literally belongs to my father, and the Arl grossly overstepped by punishing him without first bringing his grievance to Father.

Aeron suffered several cracked ribs, as well as deep cuts to his upper back and neck that are still visible as thick scars, and took weeks to recover. Still, he made me swear not to tell my father what had happened. This promise was exacted not out of shame at his indiscretion, but to protect my father, who would have been caught between his duty to Aeron's family and his friendship with Howe. Thanks to Aeron's loyalty, he and I are the only people besides Howe, Delilah, and the guards who know what happened.

Aeron himself didn't seem to be bothered by the beating so much as by the Arl's insistence that Aeron had somehow dishonored Delilah. "Call a trollop a trollop!" Aeron told me at the time.

Those words became a bit of a joke between us, repeated many times since, and repeating inside my head now. I want to smirk but force myself into composure.

"I'm sorry to have missed your arrival," I tell Howe, careful to keep my voice neutral.

"It was unexpected," he says stiffly. "I had hoped to arrive tomorrow with my troops, but my men are delayed by unexpected rains on the coast, so I rode ahead. The mounted troops may arrive tonight, but our infantry are several days behind at least. I was just apologizing to your father for the delay, but he insists on distracting me with old war stories."

"Nonsense!" Father's response is immediate and warm. "No apologies are due! The appearance of darkspawn in the south has us all scrambling. I only received our orders from the King a few days ago myself."

"If he sent riders to Amaranthine, I missed them," Howe says. "I left as soon as possible after your couriers arrived with the Wardens' message." Arl Howe glances sidelong at Duncan, who has not moved. "I presume we march south?"

"Yes," my father says, and beckons me toward the table. "Ser Gilmore, you too," my father says, "this concerns you as much as any of us. I'd hope to include Fergus, but I haven't seen him since breakfast."

"He was in the kitchen maybe a half hour ago?" I offer.

"I know, he was here when Howe arrived," Father says, "but he seems to have misplaced himself. If Oren's still at lessons, he's probably stealing a few minutes with Oriana."

Howe chuckles. "Ah, youth."

"Oren was with him in the kitchen," Aeron says. "They were looking for sweets, I think. It did seem like they were going back upstairs to their apartments when they left, though, so they may be with her now."

"Well, no matter," Father says. "We can leave them be. They deserve what time they can claim before Fergus and I leave. For now…"

Father sweeps his hand across the table's surface, which is covered with maps, charts, and written records of troop strength, so many that the papers overlap one another even though they are spread the length of the table. I see a familiar map of Ferelden, as well as numerous smaller ones depicting the roads that lead south from Highever, along the River Dane, to the bountiful farmlands around Redcliffe. The map nearest to us, however, on which father has placed several iron chess pieces, is unfamiliar; I have to study it carefully before I realize it depicts Ferelden's border with the uncharted Korcari Wilds. One of the rooks, a chess piece shaped like a castle tower, rests on a point between two hills.

"King Cailan is massing the army at the ruins of Ostagar," my father says, pointing to the rook. "Teyrn Loghain is there already with his troops, and we've received word that they've already fought several successful skirmishes against the darkspawn. Duncan brought us the news yesterday, along with news of the first skirmishes." He straightens, looking over Howe at the Warden. "Come and join us. Your input would be welcome, and besides, you wanted to meet my son."

Duncan straightens and walks over to stand beside Howe. We shake hands across the table as my father makes introductions, and I am unsurprised to find his grip firm and assured.

"Duncan, this is my youngest, Liam."

"A pleasure," Duncan says, and seems to mean it.

The Warden on the stairs, Alistair, did not fit the ideal I have nurtured since childhood of Grey Wardens as stoic warriors, mythical heroes standing against demons born from unspeakable sin. Duncan, however, appears as though he has stepped directly from legend. He is about my father's age, although his jet black hair betrays none of the grey that my father and the Arl laughed about earlier His forearms, left bare by his leather armor, are corded with muscle and roped with long scars, and he moves with a confident ease I've only seen embodied by the best of my father's soldiers.

"Pup, this is Duncan," Father continues, "the Warden Commander here in Ferelden. He was among the first to encounter the beasts, I believe. Without his warning, the southern forces would not have had time to mobilize, and half of Ferelden might already be overrun."

"Perhaps not so quickly as that," Duncan says gravely, "but we might be facing raids further north, and may still face them if Ostagar is not reinforced. My scouts spotted a horde assembling in the Korcari Wilds less than three weeks ago, and King Cailan has taken us at our word and marshalled your armies quickly. The first battles have already been fought, and the horde is not yet at full strength."

"How many do you believe there are?" Howe asks, obviously skeptical.

"When I saw it myself, the horde numbered in the thousands, perhaps ten thousand, and they were deep on the Wilds." Duncan points to a handful of black pawns placed on the bottom of the map, well south of the Ferelden border. "That was several weeks ago, before the horde move north. The most recent skirmishes have been fought only a few miles from Ostagar. Our scouts report their numbers grow daily, as more emerge from the Deep Roads, but we cannot achieve an accurate count, and we have no idea how many remain further south. To prepare ourselves, we must look to history, and records from past Blights speak of many hordes, each hundreds of thousands strong."

Aeron hisses through his teeth. No human kingdom, at least none that I have heard of, could field an army of that size. Father also appears troubled, but Arl Howe merely rolls his eyes impatiently.

"The news is not all bad," Duncan says. "I believe this Blight to be very young. Their numbers cannot have grown anywhere near that of past Blights. We may still have many weeks before the full host reaches the surface, and this gives us an opportunity: we may be able to face them down before they are at full strength, and end the Blight before it begins."

"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth," Howe sighs, "but if what you say is true, how do we know this _is_ a real Blight? You say there has been no sighting of a dragon or an Archdemon or whatever it's called, and you said yourself, just now, their numbers do not match past Blights."

"It is true," Duncan says, nodding. "No Archdemon has been sighted yet, my lord. But with my entire soul, I believe this is a Blight."

"Your soul?" Howe scoffs.

Duncan ignores the remark. "I have never felt so strong a purpose in the darkspawn, and I have never seen so many on the surface – not even a fraction. Darkspawn raids typically consist of a few dozen beasts, a hundred at most. We believe most such raids are accidental, when they blunder into a forgotten exit from the deep roads. That is not the case now. Their numbers alone tell me this is no mere raid, and they move with a purpose that can only be the will of an Archdemon." Duncan looks intently at Howe. "I understand your skepticism, Ser, but we have a chance now that we have never had before."

"You are the expert, of course, Master Warden," Howe concedes, skeptical nearly to the point of sarcasm, before turning his head to address my father. "However, there is more to be said. My Lord, I told you I did not receive word from the king, but I did receive word from Teyrn Loghain before we left Amaranthine. A warning – or a caution, rather, intended for you."

"From Loghain?" my father asks, a note of displeasure creeping into his voice.

"Yes, My Lord. I apologize for not telling you sooner, but I had hoped to speak of this more privately."

"There's no need for that."

"Loghain sends word from Ostagar," Howe says reluctantly. "He also is not convinced the darkspawn threat constitutes a Blight. The early victories have come easy, he says, and he fears committing all our forces so far south may be unwise for…other reasons." Howe glances at Duncan uncomfortably. "He also has _concerns_. About the Wardens."

Howe looks expectantly at Father, apparently hoping he will dismiss the Warden.

When Father does not, Howe sighs, turns, and addresses Duncan directly. "My apologies, Commander, but it is my understanding that you have asked for support from the Grey Wardens in Orlais?"

"Of course," Duncan replies. "The Blight is contained in the south for now, but I have only a handful of Wardens under my command. I've asked our garrisons in Orlais to prepare to come to our aid, but they will not march without King Cailan's permission."

Howe nods as though Duncan has confirmed something, and turns back to Father. "I mean no disrespect to Commander Duncan, and I doubt even Teyrn Loghain questions the honor of our Ferelden Wardens – but you know as well as I, old friend, the Orlesians would be only too happy to snatch us back into their Empire. They are not to be trusted, and Teyrn Loghain suggests that even their Wardens must be treated with suspicion."

Howe pauses, glancing at Duncan to see if he will offer any rebuttal, but the warden is stoic.

"Even if we have nothing to fear from the Orlesian Wardens," Howe continues, "when word of a Blight reaches Orlais, it may be the justification the Empress seeks to invade Ferelden again, under the auspices of defeating a Blight and supporting the Wardens. With all our armies in the south, the chevaliers could be in Denerim before word even reached us in Ostagar. With your permission, My Lord, Teyrn Loghain requests that we hold the bulk of our force here in Highever and await further word so that he and the King can determine if a true Blight exists. He also requests that we reinforce the garrisons in the northern passes, to buy us time if chevaliers march."

When Howe finishes, my father remains silent, staring down at the map. Almost a minute passes, and Howe begins to fidget with his belt until he can stand the silence no longer.

"Please, my lord. All we fought for in the rebellion-"

My father holds up a hand, stopping Howe mid-sentence. "There is no higher honor than serving as a Warden, and I have no doubt that Duncan's Orlesian brothers take their oaths as seriously as he does. But as for the Empress…I understand your fears, and Loghain's as well. I would not see chevaliers' boots on Ferelden soil again." Father pauses, and I can tell he is weighing his next words. "Now, answer me this, my friend: do these requests come only from Teyrn Loghain, or from King Cailan as well?"

Howe purses his lips and answers reluctantly. "Only Loghain. I fear…I fear Cailan sees only peace with Orlais in our future, and only glory in the face of a Blight."

Father nods, silent, still staring at the map, and it's clear he is troubled.

Long before he was a Teyrn, Loghain Mac Tair was a common soldier in the rebellion against Orlais, and an early friend of King Maric. After proposing asymmetrical tactics that ultimately saved the struggling rebellion from utter destruction at the Battle of Southron Hill, Loghain rose through the ranks; by the time Arl Howe and my father made their stand at White River, Loghain commanded all of Maric's troops. Many credit him even more than Maric with our eventual victory over the Orlesians, which was cemented in the same battle that earned Loghain his unofficial title: The Hero of the River Dane.

Since then, his power has only grown. When Maric took back the throne, his first act was to bestow Loghain with titles and land; during Maric's rule, Loghain was his closest adviser, and years later, when the king was lost at sea, Loghain served as regent until Maric's son, Cailan, came of age; and when King Cailan was crowned, he wasted no time marrying Loghain's daughter, Anora, our current queen.

By law and tradition, Loghain's title is the same as Father's. As the only two Teyrns in Ferelden, they hold more authority than anyone save the King. The people, however, look to Loghain even more than Cailan as Ferelden's true leader, and my father shows deference to Loghain that rank does not demand. He has told me more than once that there is no one, in all Thedas, he respects more than Teyrn Loghain.

But none of that matters if Loghain has circumvented the King to make such this request. Even if my father shares the fear of Orlesian aggression, the question is one of duty, and my father owes his duty to King Cailan. And a Cousland always puts his duty before any other consideration.

I am not surprised when my father says, with finality, "Then we march south."

"Yes, my lord," Howe says, and inclines his head. It is a gesture of respect, but it also serves to hide a scowl.

"We can't keep the King waiting," Father says, nodding as he speaks. "I'll send Fergus immediately, with the troops. You and I will ride tomorrow, with the supply caravans, and hopefully with your cavalry, if they arrive in time. We can leave orders for your men to follow us south when they arrive, but you may have several regiments break off to reinforce the border outposts. I'll send riders in the meantime to the western constabulary and the banns who don't march with us, instructing them to hire scouts to send west. If the Orlesians do march, we'll at least have some notice."

"Thank you," Howe says, but he does not seem relieved in the least.

Father turns to me now. "Pup, I summoned you here for a reason, not just to hear us argue politics. You have heard, I believe, that Duncan is here looking for recruits before he rides south to join us and his fellow Wardens?"

I nod.

"Then you also know Ser Gilmore has agreed to join our Order," Duncan says. "I came to Highever specifically to recruit Ser Gilmore. However, I am looking for other recruits as well."

A knot begins to form in my stomach. "Others?"

"Yes. Our numbers are few, especially in Ferelden. I am always looking for men and women who possess the skills we need, but the Blight has added urgency to my search. Even so, besides Ser Gilmore, I've been able to find only two other candidates on my journey who are worthy and willing to serve. You may know one of them – Ser Jory, of Caer Oswin?"

It takes me a moment, but I eventually put a face to the name. Darrien Jory is related to Lady Landra – one of the Bann's nephews, I believe. He has competed with Aeron in a number of tournaments.

"I know him," I say. "He's a fine swordsman."

"As is your friend," Duncan says, nodding to Aeron. "The other recruit is a thief, a pickpocket who tried to cut my purse in Denerim on my way to meet the king. This thief, Daveth, is no warrior, and has not lived a particularly honorable life. In fact, had I not conscripted him into our Order, he would've been hanged for repeat offenses." Duncan pauses, openly studying me for any reaction. "Perhaps, young Ser, you are wondering why I chose to offer him a place among the Wardens?"

Not sure how to respond, I simply nod.

"The Wardens seek those who possess unique skills, most often those of a warrior. But it takes more than blades to win wars, and Daveth was skilled at his art. I am not an easy man to stalk, but I did not hear him behind me, and barely felt his cut on my belt. It was only luck that I caught him. Perhaps you can see why such talents would be useful to me?"

I nod again.

"Now, if I can find no other suitable candidates, I will ride south with those three – Daveth, Ser Jory, and your Ser Gilmore – after they complete their trials. I hope to complete the trials within the next few days, here in Highever, and your father has graciously assured me that in his absence, I can count on your assistance in this matter."

Duncan pauses, and from the corner of my eye I see my father's shoulders tense.

"Or," Duncan continues, "If I might be so bold, I would suggest you are an excellent candidate for recruitment as well."

The knot in my stomach tightens so quickly that I am suddenly light-headed. The room seems to shift sideways and begin to spin, and my breathe catches in my throat. My thoughts are frozen along with my tongue, my silence surely condemning me as a coward or a fool. With great effort I force my mouth to open, but no words follow.

"I know you would do the Order proud," Father says, "and if we do face a true Blight, there is no greater service than as a Grey Warden."

Dimly, I realize that the space between Duncan's offer and Father's interjection was less than a second. I haven't yet made a fool of myself, but my mind is no clearer for the realization.

Father whets his lips before continuing. "My first duty is to the people of Highever, and then to ensuring the Cousland line. Fergus has already refused Duncan's offer, so I have no right to prevent you from accepting, should you wish to do so. Even if I tried, Commander Duncan could invoke the Right of Conscription and take you from me anyhow, and I could do nothing to prevent him."

Duncan shakes his head adamantly. "Have no fear of that, my lord. I do not believe in forced service. Even if I did, you have proven yourself a friend to my Order, and we have not so many of those that I would cast your support aside."

In the midst of a storm of thoughts raging in my mind, Duncan's last few words stand out. I recall Brother Aldous remarking in the courtyard that the Wardens have few friends in Ferelden besides my family. I really will have to ask the brother about this, I tell myself, and then immediately wonder why this detail preoccupies me instead of the choice suddenly laid at my feet.

Father is staring at me, I realize. His hands go to my shoulders and he pulls my head close to his, until our foreheads touch. From the corner of my eyes, I see both Aeron and Howe turn aside; Duncan, however, does not look away.

"You are my son," my father says, his words soft and forceful at the same time, "and I have not so many children that I would send any of you to battle willingly. But you, especially – you..." Whatever he was about to say, Father thinks better of it. He squeezes my shoulders briefly and releases me. "If it were up to me, I would see you remain here and steward our people through this storm. But the choice is yours, pup."

I nod, and turn to Duncan, slowly finding words. "You would – you would really recruit me as a Grey Warden?"

If anything, Duncan looks surprised by my question. "Of course. You are young and unmarried, and I understand you have some skill with a bow. Above all, you are obviously responsible if your father is willing to leave you in charge of his castle and his lands. We do not simply recruit anyone, and I intended no flattery when I said you show promise. I would have asked you last night, when I approached Ser Gilmore, but the Teyrn requested I speak to your brother first."

I look at Father in surprise, and he nods tersely.

All of us are silent for several seconds, the wood crackling and popping in the fire. Their eyes are on me again, and still I have no answer as my cheeks flush and burn, and as the seconds stretch, I realize the heat from the fire is overwhelming, stifling my breathe and forming beads of sweat at my temples.

Why would Father offer Fergus first? Fergus is married, with one child and another on the way, and Duncan specifically referred to my lack of a family when explaining his interest in recruiting me. Further, although titles are not always passed on to the eldest child, that is the presumption, and I've heard nothing to indicate Fergus will not be the next Teyrn.

And although I am not surprised he refused Duncan's offer, I don't understand why Fergus didn't mention the invitation earlier, in the kitchens. If Duncan made an offer to him, and he refused, surely Fergus must have guessed an offer would be made to me?

Did Duncan even intend to make the offer to Fergus? He said Father insisted…

All these questions press on me as I try to consider an answer I never imagined needing.

This morning, when Aeron told me would become a Warden, it was clear there would be no dissuading him, and even if there were a chance to change his mind, I would not try. He is my friend, and I would not stand between him and his dreams, even though his absence will be felt dearly.

It did not cross my mind that the Wardens might make me the same offer, nor was such an offer something I desired. Adventure is not something I seek, yet I feel shame at being left behind while those I love risk life and limb. No matter what Aeron wagers, no matter what Brother Aldous says, I am convinced that remaining in Highever while my friends and family ride to war is cowardice. Yet to remain is the duty I have been given.

Would joining the Wardens be the greater service? Or would it merely be escape from a duty of which I'm ashamed?

If I do not stay here, who will? Would Fergus remain behind? If so, should I not accept Duncan's offer, if only to spare Oren the risk of growing up an orphan?

And what of Iona? If I joined the Wardens, could I marry her after all? Or would I have to give her up forever? I don't know if the Wardens permit such things…but they must, if Ser Jory is being recruited. Or will he leave his wife completely to face the Blight?

I shake my head, trying to clear it, trying to think past the questions.

"You need not decide now," Duncan says, his voice calm as he interrupts a silence that has felt like eternity. "Unless the answer is clear to you?"

Relieved, I shake my head, wanting to laugh at the lunacy of his question. "I...I wish it were," I manage.

"It's a difficult choice you face," Howe says softly, surprising me. My eyes dart to him, anticipating a trap in his words; instead, I find his expression earnest, even sympathetic. "Who can weigh one duty against another?" he asks.

I'm so surprised by his sincerity that I have to force myself to refocus on Duncan and my father. "You both mentioned other help I might provide the Wardens," I say, slowly.

Duncan nods immediately. "There are certain trials that all initiates must endure, before a final ritual commits them to a life with the Order. Much of this, we choose to keep private, but the trials take several days, and the ritual requires privacy and certain resources. If necessary, the entire process can wait until we reach Ostagar, but the front lines are not ideal, and I would rather arrive at the King's camp with new Wardens than with initiates."

"If you choose to remain here," Father interjects, "you will see that any of Duncan's requests are granted, without question or hindrance. There are other duties to tend to as well, of course – I can spare only a token force to remain at the castle, and you know what they say about mice when the cat is away, yes? You would have much to do, including reinforcing the garrisons at the western passes."

"Think on it tonight," Duncan advises. "Talk with your family. Talk with your friend, Ser Gilmore. If I were you, I might pray as well. This is not a choice to make lightly."

"Good advice," Howe intones.

"We'll speak again in the morning," Duncan says. "I will look for your answer then. For now, it sounds as though you have much to do, so I will take my leave."

"Will you require Ser Gilmore?" Father asks.

"There will be time enough for him to join us tomorrow," Duncan says, and then looks at Aeron. "The next few days will bring many changes, Ser Gilmore. Enjoy tonight, say your goodbyes, and ready yourself for the testing."

Duncan turns back to my father and strikes his right fist against his chest, the traditional Ferelden gesture of respect. "Thank you for your hospitality, my lord, and your support."

"The honor is mine," Father tells him.

Duncan bows to Howe as well, although does not strike his chest. Howe returns the bow perfunctorily, barely dipping forward, and righting himself almost immediately. If Duncan notices the sleight, he gives no indication, turning instead and walking around the table and toward the courtyard door.

"The Warden Commander is correct," Father says once Duncan has gone. "We all have much to do. Fergus knows our marching plans, but when we last spoke, we had not yet decided he will leave today. Pup, please go and tell him. He needs to begin preparations now, and I expect he'll need time to say his goodbyes – he had not planned to march until tomorrow morning, I believe."

Now it's my turn to bow. "Yes, Father."

"You may take Aeron with you, if he is agreeable. I'd like you both to stay nearby, in case anything comes up, but I took the liberty of clearing both your schedules. I'm sure you'll find ways to fill the time." Father glances at me. "Do try not to get into any trouble, though. Your mother is already beside herself."

I assume he means Iona: he must, otherwise the prohibition against trouble would be directed to Aeron as well.

Instead, Father has other words for him. "Ser Gilmore," he says, and extends a hand. They grasp one another's forearms, and then Father surprises Aeron by pulling him into half a bear hug. "I'm sure we'll speak again before you leave," Father tells him, "but in case we do not, I want you to know - I could ask The Maker for no better friend or steward for my son than you have been. You have served me and my family well, and have done your family proud. I wish you only the best with the Wardens."

Aeron steps back from the embrace and bows deeply. "Thank you, My Lord."

Father nods, then turns to me. "And you, Pup. I hope you will make no decisions until we have a chance to speak, just the two of us?"

I nod.

"Good," he says. "Find me at dinner tonight. There will be toasting and dancing, I'm afraid, but I'm sure they'll allow us a few moments together. Even apart from your choice, there's much we should discuss."

"Yes, Father," I repeat.

"Well then," he says, and looks at me, then Aeron, then back to me. He seems on the verge of speaking further, but instead he exhales, long and slow. Then he looks away. "My friend," he says to Howe, "would you join me in addressing the troops? I need to prepare them to move out with Fergus, but I'd like to say a few words to them before they march."

The Arl inclines his head respectfully. "Of course, My Lord."

They, too, walk away from the table, Howe nodding to me as he passes, leaving Aeron and I alone by the table. We watch them leave, silent as they walk toward the doors.

Father puts an arm around Howe's shoulder as they walk. "We can discuss how best to shore up the defenses at the pass while we go," he says, "and if we tire of that, we can discuss the fates of our children behind their backs."

Howe chuckles. "For whatever good it will do."

They reach the doors and open them, and outside I can hear the guards brace, this time with cause. Then the hall is empty.

"Well," Aeron says, and claps me on the shoulder, "you look like you've swallowed a whole potato."

"Did you know?" I ask.

"Know what? That he'd make you an offer?"

"What else?" I snap.

Shaking his head, Aeron chuckles. "I was as surprised as you. Well, until he started asking you to guess why he took on a cutpurse."

"That was odd," I say.

"Yeah," Aeron agrees. "I guess he was just letting you know you don't have to be a big, brawny warrior like me to be welcome. If they take on thieves, I guess they'll welcome a boring old bookworm like you, too. You want to talk about it?"

I shrug, palms up. I don't even know where to start.

"Fair enough," Aeron says. "I'll try not to pry. For the record, though, I think it'd be brilliant: you and me, Grey Wardens?" He laughs delightedly. "We used to pretend we were, remember? We made all the younger kids be darkspawn…"

I do remember, although I don't say so. I begin to walk toward the staircase to the upper floors, where my family's apartments are located. The thought of the two of us, riding into glorious battle as Grey Wardens, armor flashing in the sun as we raise our swords, it really must be like something from Aeron's childhood dreams. But those dreams were always his more than mine. I'm not even sure I had dreams as a child – but if I did, they were not dreams of war and glory.

Even now, my fondest dream would be to find that all of _this_ has been a dream – to wake up, and to find Iona beside me, and to find that nothing else in my life is changing. No Wardens, no Blight. Just Highever, as it's always been, and always should be.


	6. Wars, Wagers, and Wagging Tongues

**CHAPTER FOUR:** War, Wagers, and Wagging Tongues

" **You remember our bet?"** I ask. We have gone up two flights of stairs now, passing quarters belonging to the head servants and their families on the keep's fourth and fifth floors. We've not yet reached the sixth floor, a commons of sorts that provides separate access to each of my family's private apartments. Already, my head is clearer.

"The bet we made ten minutes ago?" Aeron asks, amused. "Yes. Yes, I think I just might."

"Well, I only bring it up because your position seemed to be that there's no Blight coming, and all you'll find in the south is a handful of darkspawn?" Despite my best attempts, I can feel the corners of my lips tugging toward a smirk. Hopefully Aeron, who is behind me, can't hear it in my voice.

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

"Oh, I was just thinking," I say innocently. "Talking like that, you sound a lot like Arl Howe."

"Fuck Howe!" Aeron replies immediately, as I know he will.

I laugh anyway.

"And fuck you!" Aeron adds for good measure, indignant. " _But_ – and, I hate to say this – _but_ – he's not a fool. If Teyrn Loghain thinks this is a goose chase, I'd tend to believe him."

"Still. Seems like you two really saw eye to eye back there.

"Fuck you!" he repeats. "I take back what I said, you should turn Duncan down and stay here, if you know so much better than Loghain! You can stay up here and worry about missing out on the glory, for all I care, and while I'm wading through muck and grime, searching for monsters that aren't there and dreaming about all the ale and tits I haven't had in six months' time, at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing you owe me a silver!"

...

 **Still laughing,** we push open a door at the top of the stairs, into the commons, and find it already occupied. Mother and Lady Landra are seated on adjoining couches, with a low table between them bearing tea, fruit, and cutlery – apparently the remains of their lunch. A man wearing formal armor stands behind Landra, his back to the women, staring into a crackling fireplace. It takes me a moment to recognize the man as Ser Jory, Landra's nephew.

On her couch, Mother looks relaxed in spite of her formal attire: her feet are curled beneath her, hidden by her voluminous skirts, and she clasps a steaming cup with both hands, holding it just beneath her nose as she inhales deeply. Her graying hair, elaborately pinned up when she passed us earlier in the dining hall, hangs in a single braid down her back. Her eyes are closed, smoothing the few lines on her face, and a slight smile plays at the corner of her lips as she nods slowly at whatever Lady Landra is saying. When we enter, her eyes open and the smile grows, but other than these small changes, she doesn't stir.

The man by the fire shifts to look at us, however, and inclines his head respectfully when he recognizes me and Aeron. Lady Landra struggles to her feet as quickly as she can, beaming and discarding a half-eaten scone onto the table.

"Liam!" she exclaims, arms out for a hug from halfway across the room. "So good to see you again!"

Intentionally avoiding Aeron's sidelong glance, I walk over to Landra and politely accept her crushing hug. Thankfully, she does not appear to be into her wine yet today, and pecks me once on the cheek before letting me go.

"I trust your journey was pleasant, My Lady," I say, bowing slightly as she steps back.

"Oh, yes!" Landra exclaims, beaming. "My nephew, Dairren – you know him, I think? – he has been accepted into the Grey Warden Order – can you imagine?" She beckons urgently at Ser Jory to join us, and he turns stiffly away from the fire and begins to stride over. Meanwhile, I briefly debate telling Landra that she has crumbs on her lace-covered décolletage. "He was asked _personally_ by the Commander of the Grey Wardens, a very handsome man named Duncan!"

"It is a great honor," Ser Jory says, having arrived beside his aunt. His armor is polished to a sheen, one that is matched by the sweat glistening on his freshly-shaven head. It has been at least a year since I saw him last, but I recall that he used to have quite a mop of hair, which he wore untied, and seemed quite proud of. Either the Wardens require their recruits to shave their heads, which seems unlikely, or Ser Jory is attempting to look more warlike in light of his new position.

"Anyhow," Landra continues breathlessly, "Commander Duncan and a number of his brethren rode with us all the way from Denerim! Quite the escort, don't you think?"

Behind her, mother sets her tea cup down and rises.

Landra has turned her attention to Aeron, and is making introductions between him and Ser Jory, although none are necessary; the two have crossed blades at several tournaments, and although Aeron has always emerged the victor, he spoke favorably of Ser Jory's skill with a blade after each encounter.

"My son," Mother says, smiling warmly at me. "I assume that since we have received refreshments from the kitchen, you were able to deal with that troublesome hound of yours?"

"Yes, ma'am," I say. "Nan's head exploded, and Madra ate a number of the kitchen staff, but otherwise, yes, definitely."

Mother laughs. Even when Aeron and I were at the peak of our hooliganism, in our early teens, she always had trouble keeping a straight face when dealing with us. She rules the home with a firm hand, but also a ready smile, and as a result we both adore her.

"Well," she says, "I suppose that's no worse a result than Nan quitting on us."

It's my turn to laugh. "She did threaten to quit a few times, but we dealt with Madra, and also with another...issue, I guess you could call it, and Madra was actually a help for once. If anything, I'd say Nan was grateful to her by the end of it."

In another setting, I'd not hesitate to tell Mother about the rats; she would probably want a full recounting, in fact. Something very few people know about my mother is that her taste for stories is decidedly bloodthirsty, and that she herself is quite an adept hunter.

"Fergus did mention there was some trouble," Mother says, winking at me, which leads me to believe she did know about the rats – and that she appreciates me leaving that detail out in the presence of her guest. "Thank you both for handling the issue."

Aeron breaks away from Landra and Dairren to bow. "Anything for you, My Lady," he says, with a flourish, and takes my mother's hand to kiss her knuckles.

Mother snaps her hand away, but with a smile, and Landra falls into a fit of giggles. "Oh, what a charmer! Oh, Eleanor, how can you resist!"

"The charm wears off, I assure you," Mother says, not without affection. "The both of them are often more trouble than they're worth. Speaking of which, what brings you two ruffians upstairs?"

"Looking for Fergus," I say. "You've heard Arl Howe's men are delayed?"

"Fergus told us Howe's men are several days behind." She shakes her head irritably. "You'd think they are all walking backwards."

"Arl Howe said something about rains washing out some of the roads,"

"Not the roads _we_ travelled," Landra says indignantly. "The old goat is just making excuses, I'm sure."

"Aunt!" Dairren chides. "Our road was much further south than the road from Amaranthine. Coastal weather can be very…"

"Pish-posh!" Landra says, waving him off. "The Wardens want you for your sword arm, not your meteorological observations. Howe is a doddering old ass."

Aeron chuckles at this, earning an adoring smile from Landra.

"Your father wants Fergus to leave early, then, I suppose?" Mother guesses. "He's in his apartments, with Oriana and Oren, taking their lunch."

"We invited them to eat with us, of course," Lady Landra interjects, "but of course, one understands he'll want as much time with his darling little family as he can find, before marching. Do you suppose they'll stay for tonight's feast?"

"Tonight's feast?" I repeat.

"I doubt it very much," Mother answers, before explaining.

Evidently Nan's temper has continued to boil over due to the tardiness of the Amaranthine soldiers, and more particularly the wasted time spent cooking for them this morning. When Lady Landra heard of the commotion, she cleverly – if predictably – suggested salvaging the food for a feast this evening, and volunteered her retinue of servants to assist Nan in the efforts. The feast is ostensibly to bid farewell to Father, Arl Howe, and the other assorted nobility who will ride south in the morning, with or without the host from Amaranthine. It's noble of Lady Landra to have thought of such a solution, although I'm sure the prospect of food, wine, song, and dance may also have played a role.

I can't help wondering what Nan makes of all this – whether she is pleased or furious, or perhaps both. With her, it can be hard to tell the difference. I also can't help wondering if Iona is in the kitchens now, and if by running to the library earlier, I missed her by only a few minutes.

No sooner has the latter thought crossed my mind than she appears around a corner, carrying an empty silver platter as she walks toward the table at which Mother and Landra dined. She is across the room, unseen by everyone but Aeron and I; she walks around the fireplace, focused on the plates that still need to be cleared, and both Aeron's body and Ser Jory's disguise me from her view. I'm afforded a few seconds to watch her while she remains unaware.

Human women often walk with a distinctive sway to their hips, and it is a question of no small interest to Aeron as to whether this is a natural phenomenon or a practiced technique. Elves move completely differently, and yet with no less allure. As Iona walks, you could be forgiven for thinking she is gliding, no part of her beside her feet moving at all; but you could also be forgiven for thinking she is a dancer, flowing gracefully across the room with all her being.

Her blond hair is cut to shoulder-length and is loose except for several thin braids pulled back from her forehead; one hangs on each side of her face, framing her cheekbones, and the others are pulled back behind pointed ears and gathered together at the back of her neck, where they are woven together with beads or jewelry. Her shoulders are bared by her dress, and she wears a silver choker, inset with amber-colored stones that match others embroidered into her long, smooth dress. She is the picture of fashion, and I have no doubt that every aspect of her current appearance was meticulously selected by Lady Landra – and fervently hated by Iona herself.

"Ah, there you are, dear Iona!" Landra calls out just as Iona sets the platter down and reaches for the nearest empty plate.

Iona looks up at our group and sees me for the first time. She keeps her face neutral as she rises and curtsies, but – oh so briefly – she allows her enormous green eyes to meet my gaze.

"You remember Ser Cousland and Ser Gilmore, of course?" Landra asks. "Iona used to live in Highever, you know," she adds, addressing us now. "Her mother was one of Eleanor's ladies in waiting, wasn't she, my dear?"

It can truly appalling, this woman's ignorance. Over the years, it's become clear that Mother never told Landra about my relationship with Iona, but even with that in mind, Landra cannot truly believe we would fail to recognize Iona. The reason Landra took Iona on – the reason Iona's family left Highever, and Iona's mother left my mother's service – is well known to Landra, or ought to be. Then again, if Landra had any sense, she'd have left Iona in Denerim, at Bann Loren's family estate, rather than bringing her back here. So, in this case, I suppose I can be grateful for Landra's ignorance.

"My lady," Aeron says to Iona, bowing politely.

"Iona," I say softly, and smile as I follow Aeron's example. I've done my best to keep the depth of emotion out of my voice, but I noticed Ser Jory glances at me questioningly and watch my mother's shoulder's tense, and know I haven't exactly succeeded.

"Ah, yes," Landra blunders on, still oblivious, "Iona asked about you both. You must have known each other as children?"

"My lords," Iona says, her eyes only on me now. "It is an honor to see you both again. I understand you are to be a Grey Warden, Ser Gilmore?"

Aeron nods. "So I'm told."

"And you, my lord?" Iona asks, the tiniest hint of hesitation in her voice.

That question – I had thought I left it below, in the great hall. If anyone else were asking, I'm sure I could find a diplomatic answer that gave nothing away. Failing that, I could lie. But not to Iona – not knowing that the question is weighing on her mind.

"Don't look now, Eleanor," Landra blurts, "but I think your boy may be smitten with my maid!"

If mother could drop her face into her hands, I think she might.

"My lady!" Iona protests, indignant but also amused. Even the blind can blunder close to the truth.

"I was merely surprised by the question, Lady Landra," I explain. I'm rather proud of my sudden bout of diplomacy.

"Of course, of course," Landra says, before breaking into a giggle. "Oh, but no one _blames_ you, Liam – she's quite lovely!"

"Hush, Landra," Mother says, a slight edge in her voice that cuts the giggling short. "You'll turn the poor girl scarlet, talking about her like this."

Iona curtsies to my mother before turning back to the table and platter, but not without casting me a sidelong glance – not one of amusement at Landra's babbling, but one that contains a question. I'm painfully aware that I did not answer her question about the Wardens, and my own conflict at Aeron's recruitment is a painful reminder of Iona's position.

Before I can offer an answer to Iona, I'll have to find one for myself. If we can manage to find time together tonight, she may even be able to help me find an answer – even more than Aeron, Iona was always my closest confidant, and even now, separated as we are by duties and distance, she can still offer clarity and perspective when I need them most.

Mother is soothing Landra now, as Iona finishes clearing off the table. I watch as she walks away, not an unpleasant view, and am dimly aware that mother is excusing herself. She wants to come with me, to bid farewell to Fergus.

"I understand, of course, Eleanor," Landra is saying. "Go on, go on. I think perhaps I could use a rest, anyhow, my dear."

"I will walk you back to the suite, Aunt," Dairren says, and turns to Aeron. "Could I persuade you to accompany me, Ser?"

"Uh," Aeron says, and glances to me, then Mother, who gives a nod.

Dairren seems genuinely pleased. "Since I heard we would take the Grey together, I have been hoping to speak with you," he says. "There can be no greater honor, I think, than to serve the Wardens, especially in times such as these. What have you heard about the testing? I expect it will be quite rigorous…"

As they depart, Aeron turns and makes a face. Never one for earnestness, he is no doubt quailing in the face of Ser Jory's intense sincerity. Still, he's gracious enough to recognize his place is elsewhere as Mother and I bid Fergus farewell. Besides, Aeron being Aeron, I'm sure he and Dairren will be great friends by the end of their solemn discussion of righteous glory.

...

 **The family apartments** are accessed by private stairways at each corner of the commons, and together make up the keep's seventh floor. Fergus' apartment is on the southwestern corner, and the army encampment is easily visible from many of the windows. Oren is perched on a cushioned window-seat, his nose pressed against the glass, staring down at formations of soldiers.

"Will there really be a war, Papa?" he asks without turning. "Will you bring me back a sword?"

"I'll get you the mightiest one I can find, I promise," Fergus says, winking at me as I pass. He answered our knock at the door, and has held it open as we enter.

"When?" Oren asks.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Fergus says. "Probably before you know it."

"I wish victory were indeed so certain." Fergus' wife, Oriana, is seated at the edge of a sofa near Oren's window. "My heart is…disquiet, my love."

Fergus moves toward her. "Stop it," he says with a smile, "you'll frighten the boy, and me besides."

Oriana turns her full lips into a pout and reaches out to take his hand, rising from the sofa.

"It is my prerogative to worry," she says.

Although she is about my age, and in fact quite beautiful, Oriana has always seemed much older to me. She carries herself with practiced grace, and somehow her soft voice and gentle words carry the weight of authority. Unlike the rest of our family, she wears her nobility proudly, preferring formality and finery to traditional Ferelden utilitarianism, but without a shred of ostentation. Her purple and gold dress is Orlesian, and she wears her long hair up, pinned in place with golden ornaments, but all of her jewelry today is blue and green, the Cousland colors.

"And mine to reassure you," Fergus says, turning her with one hand to face mother, almost as though he is twirling her in a dance. "I speak the truth. I will be back before any of you can even miss me."

"Who said we'll miss you," I say, and at that, Oren turns and jumps off the window seat.

"Uncle!" You'd think it had been weeks since we saw each other last, rather than hours. Not for the first time today, Oren sprints at me and I pick him up in an enormous hug. Seated comfortably on my hip, Oren whispers quite loudly in my ear: "Nan gave me cookies!"

"To our eternal dismay," Oriana says. "He's only just now stopped moving to look out at the troops."

"I want to go with Papa," Oren announces.

"Me too," I say, and set him down on the ground.

"I'd love to have you both," Fergus says, ruffling Oren's hair. "It'll be tiring, killing all those darkspawn by myself."

We have gathered in a loose circle at the center of the room now, Oren on my left and Mother on my right. Fergus and Oriana are still holding hands.

"Your father and mother would be foolish to put both their heirs in danger," Oriana tells me. Maybe I'm reading too deeply into her words, but there seems to be an implication that I ought to be riding south, not Fergus. If that's her intent, I certainly don't disagree.

"Indeed we would," Mother says, "and Fergus lobbied hard for the honor." It's a gentle rebuke to Oriana. She may not prefer to dress for the part, but mother can play the game of words as well as any noble.

"Well, if it's any consolation," Fergus interjects, completely oblivious to the subtext, "I'm sure the moment the battle is over, I'll regret my decision. No doubt I'll freeze in the southern rain and be completely jealous of all of you, up here, warm and safe."

"I am positively thrilled that you plan to be so miserable, my husband," Oriana remarks dryly.

"You really think this will be over so quickly?" I ask. "Aeron thinks the same."

Fergus shrugs. "Word from the south is that the battles have gone well, is it not? Grey Wardens or no, there's no evidence this is a true Blight. My money says this is just a large raid, nothing more."

"I've a bet going with Aeron about that," I say. "I hope you're both right; I wouldn't mind giving up my coin, this time."

"Speaking of Aeron–" Fergus glances sideways at Mother, then continues. "Did the Warden talk to you?"

Before I can answer, Oren butts in excitedly. "Is a Grey Warden here? Here right now!?"

"Uh, yes," Fergus says distractedly.

For everyone else present, the air is thick with implications and with my unanswered question. For Oren, there is nothing but awe and delight. My nephew is literally hopping up and down as he barrages us with questions: "Is he a mage? How many darkspawn has he killed? Did he ride in on a griffon? Can I see the griffons!? Where is he? How many are there!?"

"Oren!" Oriana's exclamation silences him, at least momentarily. "Take a breath, my son. And you know griffons only exist in stories."

"Oh," Oren says, crestfallen. "Why?"

Mother, likely possessing more experience answering the unanswerable questions of little boys, takes point. "No one knows," she says simply.

"But what happened to them?" he presses.

"Perhaps they flew away to join the Maker," Oriana suggests, which seems to placate Oren.

"Well," Fergus says to me, "have you decided?"

"Actually," I say, evading the question, "I'm here with word from Father. He asks that you make ready to leave as soon as possible, without him. He and Arl Howe will follow tomorrow, with the supply wagons and the other nobles."

"Then the Arl's men _are_ delayed," Fergus says, nodding. "I should get under way, then – so many darkspawn to decapitate, so little time! I guess you've both come to say goodbye, as well?"

I nod. "Father will meet you at the camp. He wants to say words to the men before you march."

"Be well, my son," Mother says, her voice uncharacteristically husky. "We'll take our leave, so that you can be with your beautiful family, but…" Abruptly, she pulls Fergus into a tight hug. "I will pray for your safety every day that you are gone."

Looking a bit startled, Fergus puts his arms around my mother. She is tiny in his embrace.

"Fergus will be fine, Mother," I say, stepping forward and putting a hand on her shoulder. Our circle closes, as Oriana also puts an arm around her husband, and Oren moves close as well.

"I keep telling you all," Fergus chuckles, "no filthy darkspawn will ever best me! Liam is right, I'll be fine!"

"All the same," Oriana says softly, "I'll be praying too."

"We should pray now," Mother says, releasing Fergus.

We join hands and bow heads, Oren fidgeting almost immediately, as Mother speaks a brief benediction. "Maker, sustain and preserve us all. Watch over these sons, these husbands, and these fathers, and bring them safely back to us, those who love them."

"Amen," we all say, and hands are squeezed before they are released.

"And, Maker, bring us victory, ale, and wenches!" Fergus adds, forcing levity. "For the men, of course."

"Fergus!" Oriana exclaims. "You'd say this in front of your own mother!"

"What's a wench?" Oren wants to know. "Is that what you pull on to get the bucket out of the well?"

"Uh," Fergus says, looking down at his son with a bemused expression. He looks at Oriana for help, and she regards him stonily.

"A wench is a woman who pours ale in cheap taverns," Mother says, surprising us all. "Or a woman who drinks too much ale."

"Huh," Fergus says, smiling. "In that case, I guess most of the women I was friends with before I met your mother were wenches, Oren."

"Maker's breath, Fergus!" Oriana looks at my mother helplessly. "It's like we're surrounded by a pack of small boys!"  
Fergus laughs. "And this small boy will miss you all." He pecks Mother on the cheek, then looks at me. "You'll take care of her, Brother, won't you?"

I clap him on the shoulder. "Since when has she ever needed taking care of?"

He laughs again. "True. Really, we should be sending Mother, not me. You'd scold those darkspawn right back into the Deep Roads."

"Send Nan, too," I suggest.

"That's just unfair to the darkspawn."

"Why do they get to go, but I can't?" Oren demands.

"Well," Mother says, exasperated, "I'm glad you all find this so funny!"

Fergus hugs her again, kissing her forehead this time. "And I'm glad we have you to worry for us." Again, he addresses me. "And not just her, you'll look after Oriana and my son, won't you?"

He's really asking: _You won't run off with Aeron and the Wardens, will you?_

When he asks that way, I suppose I already know the answer. "Of course I'll look after them. Although I expect Oren will protect us all well enough."

This please Oren immensely. "What if the castle is attacked?" he asks, hopefully. "There could be dragons!"

"Dragons are horrible, Oren," his mother chides. "They _eat_ people."

"Yes!" he exclaims, as though nothing could be better. "I can't wait to see one! It'll be so big…"

"This is your influence, Fergus," Oriana says, exasperated.

"What? I didn't say anything!"

"Are you going to teach me to use a sword, Uncle? I'll need one if there are dragons – or _evil things_!" Oren again strikes a dueling stance, hacking and stabbing now with an imaginary blade. "Take thaty! All darkspawn, fear my sword of truthiness!" Abruptly, he pauses, arm cocked mid-slash. "You will teach me, right Uncle?"

"I'm not very good with a sword," I admit.

"Arrows?" he suggests.

I smile. "I'm better with those. Not as good as your grandma, though." It's true – Mother, like her entire family, is a superb archer.

"Teach me that, then!"

"No," Oriana says.

"Your arms might be a little weak yet," Fergus adds, conciliatorily. "Once you can draw the bow, your uncle will teach you."

Disappointed, Oren's brows crunch inward as he thinks. "Then…poison?"

"I'm thinking, 'no,'" Oriana says, but she appears to be holding back laughter now.

"Don't worry, son, there's time aplenty for all that," Fergus says.

He steps to me, and we clasp each other's shoulders. Much passes between us in a moment of silence, and his hands tighten.

"I know you'll look after them," he says quietly. "Thank you."

The thanks are for more than watching out for Oren – they are for the choice I have not yet spoken, but have clearly made.

Taking me by surprise, I feel tears welling in my eyes – out of fear for my brother, or due to the enormity of the decision I've unwittingly made, I don't know. I pull Fergus into a hug, one that he returns fiercely.

"Be safe, big brother," I tell him. "Maker watch over you."

...

" **Walk with me,"** Mother says after we've left Fergus's apartment.

Dutifully, I follow, through the commons and then a hall, a set of stairs, another hall, and more stairs, until we emerge directly onto the curtain wall where it joins the keep's northeastern corner. A guardsman salutes my mother as we step out onto the ramparts and then continues past us, following the catwalk around the keep's sides to the courtyard landing, a crossbow slung over his shoulder.

Mother walks slowly, her arm in mine, the wind pulling at loose strands of her hair, her eyes forward as though in a trance. I pace beside her, and not for the first time today, I take in the views of the city below and the Waking Sea beyond, glittering even more brightly now beneath the noon sunshine. We go silently, turning once to follow the curtain wall, then again, until we are above the gatehouse, opposite the keep. Here, at last, mother stops, and leans on the stone battlements.

There is a commotion beneath us, a grinding noise as locks are undone and the gates swing open. We hear hooves, and then Fergus passes through the gate with several guardsmen, riding down into the castle's outer wards. He turns back once to look at the keep, but in the sun's glare he does not appear to see us.

A long sigh escapes Mother's lips, and she leans hard against my shoulder.

"It's difficult, isn't it?" she says. "To stay in the castle, and watch those we love ride off into danger? It sits poorly with me, and I know it must with you as well."

I nod slowly. "I…I don't feel peace about any of this," I admit.

"Nor do I," she agrees. "Your father and brother are marching off to fight…Maker knows what. All the assurance from you and Fergus and Bryce, all the promises in the world, they don't comfort me one bit. But as much as we both might like it, it would do no good for us to take up arms and follow them. They have their duties, and we have ours. You understand that, don't you?"

I shift, so I can look her in the eyes, and nod. "Of course, Mother."

"I know you do," she says, smiling soberly. "I know you do. Lady Landra is a bit foolish, but she isn't wrong, Liam: you've grown into a fine young man. I'm proud to call you my son."

Not sure what else to say, I put my arm around her and squeeze her shoulders.

"You never answered Fergus," she continues, when we have stood silent for another minute, watching Fergus disappear among thatched rooves, heading toward one of the gates in the outer curtain wall. "About the Wardens."

"It didn't seem the right time to…to talk about that."

"I know they've offered you a place," she says quietly. "Your father told me last night. I gather you've told them no?"

"Not yet. When Commander Duncan first asked me to join, it took me by surprise. I just – I just didn't know what to say."

"I'm surprised you didn't take it into your head to join immediately." She pauses, then corrects herself. "Actually, I suppose I'm not surprised. You've never been the type to jump headlong into anything."

"I'm not always sure that's such a good thing."

"Then trust me," she says. "It is _most_ certainly a good thing. Too many men act without considering the consequences. Your friend Aeron is one. Your brother is probably another."

Again, we are quiet for some time, staring out over the city, staring at nothing and everything.

"And have you decided now?" she asks at last.

I nod slowly. "I think so. There's a part of me that would like nothing better than to join the Wardens – I think mostly so I don't have to sit here while everyone else fights, but also just to follow Aeron. That's what I've always done, you know? It feels like it would be so much easier to keep doing that, and probably braver too. It's hard to see how I can stay here, inside the walls, safe and sound – warm in my own bed, like Fergus said – with a good conscience."

I sigh and turn away, looking out over the city once more. Mother is quiet, listening expectantly.

"But, it's like you said – we all have our own duties. If Father wants me to stay here, then I couldn't join the Wardens in good conscience, either. And besides all that…" I stop talking, wrestling with myself, trying to find the right words. Eventually, I turn back to mother and smile ruefully. "I think I knew my answer right away, I just didn't realize I knew, not until Fergus asked me to watch after his family. He said that, and I just…" I trail off again. It seems I'm having difficulty finishing my own sentences at the moment.

Again, Mother remains silent, waiting me out.

At last, I have the words. "I think, as exciting as an adventure _sounds_ , we all know that's not really what I'm meant for. Aeron's always dreamed about it, Fergus too – even Oren, I guess. But…that's just not in my blood. I don't want to be anywhere but here. Maybe that makes me a coward? I don't know."

"You are no coward," Mother says firmly. "I've no doubt you would ride to war if we gave you the chance, whether you want adventure or not."

"I do wonder," I tell her, hesitantly. "I don't mean to question you and Father, but…" She nods encouragingly. "Well, I just can't understand why Father doesn't leave Fergus here instead of me? He has a family. Wouldn't it be better for him to stay behind? He could govern Highever at least as well as I can, especially with your help."

"You really think so?"

"Of course," I say. "I mean, I guess so."

Mother studies me for some time, her face inscrutable, before finally asking: "You really don't know, then?"

"Know?" I ask.

"Fergus is a good man," she says, slowly. "He has a kind heart, and a brave spirit, and he loves his family. But for all his strength and all his goodness, he is no leader. Neither I nor your father are confident he could adequately govern the city, let alone the teyrnir, were he to remain in your stead."

She watches me intently as her meaning begins to sink in.

"Your brother," she continues, "will not be the next Teyrn of Highever."

Among the nobility of Ferelden, order of birth does not always determine the succession of titles, but such is the presumption. If I've understood Mother correctly, she and Father plan to pass Fergus over. Their intent is that I will be the next Teyrn of Highever, when Father passes or surrenders his title.

"Does Fergus know?" I ask, my voice so low it is almost a whisper.

"He agrees, in fact," Mother says. "He brought the matter to your father and I some months ago."

"Why…why didn't you tell me?"

"There's been no need until now," she says, almost wistfully. "We discussed it with Fergus, and your father and I have spoken of it often between ourselves, before and since – but there's been no pressing need to make a decision, let alone an announcement. But now, with all that's happened – all that _is_ happening – such things become more important."

Perhaps I should have seen this coming. It certainly hasn't escaped my notice that Fergus' duties are different than mine, tied less directly to the governance of the teyrnir, nor that his assignments have been less frequent and less taxing than mine. However, I'd assumed this was because he had already proved himself in the more monotonous tasks, and needed more time to fulfill his responsibilities as a husband and father.

"I imagine your father would have liked to be there when we told you," Mother says, "but…now just the seemed the right time." She smiles at me affectionately. "And, perhaps this puts you more at ease with your decision?"

I manage a choked laugh. "Maybe," I say. "Or maybe I'm rethinking things. Darkspawn suddenly don't seem so overwhelming."

"Oh, nonsense," she replies, smiling. "I know Highever will be in good hands."

"Aren't you staying?"

"For a few days," she says, "just to see if you've any questions you need answered. Then I'll travel with Landra to her estate in Denerim. Your father thinks my presence here might undermine your authority if I remained."

"So – is this a test, then?" I ask, the possibility only just now dawning on me.

"That's not how I'd thought of it," she says. "If it's anything, I suppose it's just another lesson for you. Think of it as preparation, before the full weight of the teyrnir is passed on to you."

"Hopefully not too soon," I say, without thinking about the implications.

Titles are most often relinquished voluntarily, when the nobles who hold them have reached an appropriate age for retirement and selected a suitable heir. That's all I meant, but with Father and Fergus riding the war, it would be easy to interpret my words in a grimmer fashion.

"We can only pray," Mother says, taking my words in the darker context. "But your father is a skilled warrior, and Fergus too – and they will have the Wardens with them. There's no reason to fear."

Rather than try to explain myself, I only nod. She sounds like she is trying to convince herself as much as reassure me.

"I know," I say. "So, Denerim with Lady Landra, eh?"

Mother glances sideways at me, arching an eyebrow in question.

I make a face. "Better you than me," I tell her. "Even if everything goes well, it'll be a month at least before we can expect Father back. A month or more with Landra." I shake my head, pityingly. "Now that I think of it, you might have the most difficult trial of us all."

"Landra has a good heart," Mother says, but she is chuckling. "When I married your father, she was the only woman in all the nobility who showed me any kindness. She took me under her wing, you know – she taught me what it meant to be nobility, and she's never once judged me for my common birth."

"I've heard the story," I say. "A few times, actually."

Mother smacks my shoulder.

"I know, I know," I say. "Still, I don't know how you put up with her."

After a moment, Mother gives in and nods. "I'm not sure either, sometimes. For all her kindness, she is completely incapable of holding her tongue."

"Or her wine."

Mother nods agreement, but her expression sobers. "Even so, she is a good friend. I would think you owe her no small debt of gratitude yourself, Liam."

I nod. I wondered if Iona would come up. Now she has.

"For all Landra's blundering earlier, she is not a fool," Mother says. "It's obvious you still have eyes for the girl."

I look down, not sure how to respond.

"The two of you are not so discrete as you think, either," she continues. "Even if she has not guessed the truth, she has heard rumors."

"Rumors?"

This time, Mother chuckles at my expense. "You boys play your drinking games and make wagers about war," she says. "Women like Landra drink wine and wag their tongues. She knows the girl has feelings for you as well, and it is only a matter of time before she hears more, from another noble friend or from her own staff."

"Her name is Iona, Mother," I say, careful to keep my tone respectful.

"I know her name," Mother snaps. "I _choose_ not to say, not to offend you, but to protect you from prying ears." She glances around meaningfully, and I see the guard from earlier has looped all the way around the battlements; he is trudging toward us, only a few yards away. After the guard passes, her tone softens slightly. "I suppose it's comforting to know you still need your mother to look after you, if only when it comes to courtly intrigue. If you refuse to give up this affair, you must at least be discrete."

"I thought we were."

"Then you have much to learn about discretion," Mother says, before relenting. "Word will spread among the nobility. If it hasn't already, it is only because you are not yet seen as a particularly important player in this game we all play. Once it becomes known that you will succeed your father, you will be watched more closely, and rumors will spread more rapidly."

Old frustrations and resentments begin to grow inside me. "What would you have me do, then?" I demand, trying to keep my voice quiet and my emotions in check.

"Oh, Liam." She closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly, her lips pursed. I can't tell if she's shoring up her patience, or biting back laughter. When she looks up, her expression is amused and resigned at the same time. "Even if I could tell you what to feel, I am hardly in a position to lecture you about propriety and marriage. The heart does as it will, your father and I are proof of that. But you must know you are playing with fire, son."

"Iona is not-"

"I don't mean her," Mother interrupts, and in her voice I hear the same pain that was in Fergus's this morning, in the kitchen. Mother takes my hands. "Iona is a dear girl," she says, so quiet it is almost a whisper, "and I love her almost as though she were my own daughter. And if she is the sort of woman you admire, then at least I know I raised you well. If I could take back what happened to her, I would."

She looks down briefly, then back up, and suddenly her eyes are as sad as I've ever seen them, but steely too. Maybe for the first time in my life, she looks old; I can see the weight of the years she's spent behind the throne, and I immediately regret my bitterness.

"Liam, if you love her, then you love her. I gave up hoping this was just a youth's dalliance years ago, not that there was much hope of that, and if you two still care for each other after so much time apart, then I wish you only happiness. But." She squeezes my hands and pulls them up, so they are between our chests, and stares at me with peculiar intensity. "But. You must know that there are still too many of our subjects who remember your father's justice and resent it. They would spill her blood if they could; Landra should never have brought her here."

I look away, blinking back tears of frustration and rage. Even now, years later – I still don't understand why things are the way they are. No part of it makes sense to me. Elves are different from humans, I understand that, I suppose. But so many hold so dearly to the belief – not even a belief, but conviction – that those differences mark them as necessarily beneath us.

Some, like Nan, only look down on elves, but some see them as sub-human, barely better than animals. I've stared those men in the face during petty court as they sputter out explanations for why they shouldn't have to pay an elven merchant for his goods, and I've sat in on my father's judgments of unrepentant slavers who insist their elven merchandise are not people at all, but cattle or simple profit.

"Maker knows, I've tried to change things," Mother is saying. "Your father, too. But people are stubborn. They might accept it if you kept an elven mistress – half the nobility do - but if our people knew it was her?" Mother shakes her head. "There would be blood, and maybe worse besides, and as much as I wish you happiness – and happiness for her, too – you owe our people your protection, even from themselves."

Blinking back tears, I nod. "Yes, ma'am," I say automatically.

She is right, of course. None of this is news to me. But even an hour ago, before I knew I would be Teyrn, it didn't matter. With Fergus on the throne, I could slip away, perhaps manage my own bannorn; out of the public eye, I might not be able to marry Iona, but she could be my wife all the same.

"What should I do?"

"What _should_ you do?" Mother repeats. "You _should_ cut yourself off from her, never see her again. But I doubt you can, even if I could bring myself to ask you to. So…for the time being, keep trying to be discrete. Once this filthy little war in the south is over, we'll figure out the next steps." She releases my hands after one last squeeze and smiles encouragingly. "You know," she adds, "It's an odd position to put your mother in, helping her son with an illicit affair."

Maybe because of all conflicts and questions rattling around inside my head, this strikes me as enormously funny. I nod wordless thanks through my laughter, and Mother takes my hand again and squeezes it again.

"I love you, my darling boy," she says. "You know that, don't you?"

I continue nodding, choking on the laughter and tears. I wrap her in a hug.

"I know," I manage.

Then, with wordless agreement, we resume our circuit around the curtain wall, Mother's arm back in mine.


	7. Sweet Iona

**CHAPTER FIVE:** Sweet Iona

 **Since well before dinner was served,** Iona had made it a point to catch my eye from across the great hall as often as she could. At first, she was discrete, electrifying me with only the briefest of glances. But as the night progressed, and the hall's guests departed or fell into drunkenness, the need for subtlety passed.

Many of the nobles excused themselves early, in anticipation of tomorrow's march, while others remained at the tables, seeking to wring every last drop of revelry from the evening. As you may imagine, Lady Landra was among the latter group. In a voluminous purple gown that displayed an uncomfortably large expanse of cleavage, she drank goblet after goblet of wine, laughed loudly enough to fill the hall, and danced circles around every willing partner. What I told Mother on the battlements still stands. I don't know what she sees in this woman.

Between dances, Landra asked me more than once where she could find Aeron. Quite honestly, I told her I didn't know: neither he nor Ser Jory had been seen, so far as I know, since lunch. Their absence at the banquet was particularly evident, since Father, Arl Howe, and several other nobles toasted them in absentia, honoring their commitment to the Grey Wardens with flowery words and raised glasses.

As for Lady Landra, even the most dedicated of revelers must eventually succumb, and eventually she slumped down in her seat and her head fell to one shoulder. Judging the expressions of those near her, she also began to snore. A few of her ladies-in-waiting, Iona among them, supported Landra's half-conscious body and guided her away.

The minutes after their departure found me fidgeting in my seat, fearing that Iona might not return. I've no interest in dancing, especially without Iona, and Father has long finished his toasts and speeches. He and Mother are seated nearby, lost in a quiet conversation, sparing only the occasional glance out at their guests.

How long should I wait? Should I risk another trip to the library, under cover of darkness? Or do I swallow my desires and my heartache and hope there will be time over the next few days to see Iona? It might be the smart thing to do, but I've been on edge all day waiting to feel her touch, to kiss her, just to talk to her. It's only another day, I tell myself, after more than a season apart, but even a few minutes feels like far too much time right now.

Of course, I needn't have worried. Iona slips back into the hall, and as she passes behind me, I feel her fingertips graze my elbow. She continues along the outer walls, past the fire, to stand outside a stairwell most commonly used by Nan's army of servants. The stairs provide access to every floor of the keep, except my family's apartments, and are the only direct route from the kitchen to the roof.

She is gazing at me unabashedly now, and smiles when she realizes I am staring back. She shifts her shoulders, and as the edge of her dress slides along her collarbone, I notice she has changed out of her earlier finery, into a simple peasant's dress. Firelight glints on a bottle of wine held in her left hand. Then she turns and steps into the stairwell, disappearing in shadows. The invitation is obvious, and I wait for what seems like a reasonable period of time before rising to follow her.

As I edge behind Mother's seat, I lean forward and whisper an excuse in her ear. She nods and tells me good night, and I wouldn't be surprised if she knows exactly what's going on. As I pass Father, he reaches out and touches my arm, then beckons me to sit beside him.

Although it's the last thing I want to do, I obey.

On my father's other side, Arl Howe has been quiet for most of the night, refusing food and sipping his wine very slowly. Now, he is talking quietly with his steward, Ser Randolph, a tall, inscrutable bann from south of Amaranthine. Randolph fought with Father and Arl Howe during the rebellion against Orlais; now, his duties as steward include command of Amaranthine's army and service as Howe's chief bodyguard. Besides the gamily guardsmen, Ser Randolph is the only person in the hall who is armed. A rectangular shield, painted into yellow and white quarters with a brown bear at the center, hangs on his back over a sheathed broadsword so long that I doubt I could wield it even with two hands.

With his taciturn manner, quiet confidence, and battle-scarred face, Ser Randolph is an imposing figure, and yet I've always liked him considerably more than Howe. Men like Randolph, and Duncan, and Father, wear their experience in the lines of their faces and carry it in the ways they move, and it seems to me that only a fool would ignore them when they speak. They make leadership effortless.

As I sink into my seat, Randolph nods to me, but he returns his attention on whatever his master is saying before I can respond in kind.

"Pup," Father says, and leans toward me immediately. He sounds tired, his voice husky. "I won't keep you long. Just a word."

Seated now, I nod politely. "Are you enjoying the feast?"

"Honestly? I've barely noticed any of it. Too much on my mind…" His gaze drifts away momentarily, his focus turning to the hazy darkness at the center of the hall, but then he manages a tight smile. "Your mother told me you spoke this afternoon," he says. "She says you've chosen not to join the Wardens?"

When I nod, relief spreads across his face. His smile relaxes, and he shifts ever so slightly in his chair, leaning against its high back.

"She tells me you also know our hopes for you?" he asks, so softly that only I can hear him. "That you will be Teyrn?"

Again, I nod.

"Thank the Maker," he says, and I believe he means it. Then he leans forward, his demeanor changing again, and he looks into my eyes intently. "I did not want to force this path on you, but I'm glad it's the one you've chosen. The Maker blessed your mother and I with two wonderful sons, and I cherish you both you, but if the worst should happen – well, I trust _you_ , Liam, to carry on the Cousland line, and everything we stand for."

"Forgive me," I say, "but that sounds ominous. Do you…do you fear the worst?"

"No more than anyone does on the eve of violence," Father says. It's hardly resounding encouragement, and his voice is reluctant even as he speaks this minor evasion. "Fergus and I ride to battle, not an afternoon tea. Who knows what will happen to us. But I'd prefer you not worry about us, Pup. If Loghain's fears are grounded, you'll have more than enough to occupy your mind while we're gone."

"Do you think he's right? About what Arl Howe said earlier – Orlais invading?"

Father sighs heavily, and again his eyes drift to the darkness. "Who knows," he says after a moment. "My connections in Orlais thought we were on the cusp of an alliance, not war, but it's been months since I had word, and even then, who can tell? Orlesians love to play their Grand Game, and it's all lies or half-truths. I've never been any good at it." He chuckles. "None of us _dog lords_ are, really. Whether he's right or not, Loghain has every reason to be suspicious."

"Is sending all our forces south really a good idea, then?"

"Our King demands it," Father says, his tone making it clear that this fact alone settles the matter. "Besides, even if the Orlesians are about to pounce, _not_ sending our forces south would be a distinctly bad idea. Better Ferelden under Orlesian boots than darkspawn claws."

In some company, such words might provoke cries of treachery, or at least muttered accusations. To me, though, they underscore Father's fears of what lies in the south. Clearly, whatever he thinks of Loghain's warnings of Orlais, Father does not doubt there is a true Blight in the Korcari Wilds.

"I want you to send reinforcements to the garrisons in the passes, like we discussed this morning," Father continues, "but I also want you to prepare the men we leave here, just in case, and call up as many of the militia as you can. Legends of the Blights tell of horrible, horrible things. In ages past, these darkspawn have threatened many lands, and shown no mercy. If we cannot hold them, you must prepare for the worst."

A chill runs down my spine, but I nod. "I'll do my best, Father."

Hints of his smile return. "I know you will, Pup. You're a Cousland, after all. But enough of ominous things. Let us assume that all will go well, and let us rest in the assurance that the Maker watches over us."

Given that the Chantry teaches the Maker turned his back on mankind centuries ago, I take little comfort in this supplication, but I keep the thought to myself. Father is as faithful as I am doubtful, and I've no interest in arguing theology.

"Maker watch over us," I echo.

"I'll not keep you any longer." There's a bit of a twinkle in his eye now. "I assume you have better company waiting for you elsewhere."

Choosing not to answer, I merely bow my head and rise.

As I edge between the wall and the backs of chairs, moving slowly around the outside of the great hall, I studiously avoid looking back at my parents. Still, I can feel Father smiling after me, and Mother watching with resignation. It takes longer to reach the stairwell than I'd like, as my path is obstructed by various guests, most of them some combination of corpulent, intoxicated, or just oblivious.

Once I do, though, I step through and close the wooden door behind myself, and instantly feel relief.

The sweltering heat of the hall is behind me, and the buzz of drunken conversation, and the oppressing smells of roast meat and sweaty nobility. The roof is ten floors up, but the air here is cool, and my heart is racing, and I barely notice the steps as they begin to give way beneath my feet.

...

 **Iona sits at the very edge of the keep's roof,** her legs dangling in open space, the bottle already uncorked and held to her lips. She's seated at the center of a wide break in the battlements, beneath a wooden crane that's occasionally used to lift supplies from the courtyard far below.

I'm not especially fond of heights, and in spite of my eagerness I approach cautiously and sit down gingerly at the very edge of the gap, holding onto the battlements with white knuckles until my hind parts are planted firmly and safely on the stone. Even then, I'm nervous as I slide myself sideways, towards her.

"Scaredy-cat," she teases, and offers me the bottle.

Taking it, I turn it back and forth in my hands, as though thinking it over. "I'm not sure alcohol and tall places should mix," I tell her, and then narrow my eyes suspiciously. "Are you trying to get me drunk and push me off?"

She giggles and shoves me playfully. There's no force to the push, but, embarrassingly, it still scares me half to death, and I nearly drop the bottle.

"Gods!" I exclaim, and scoot back from the edge.

She laughs harder, but slides back with me, moving closer as she does, so that her shoulder is pressed against mine.

"If I'm going to get you drunk," she says, leaning in toward my ear, so her breath is hot on my cheek, "it'll be to take advantage of you in other ways… _my lord_." The last two words slide from her tongue, half-mocking, half-seductive.

I've never had Aeron's voracious taste for women – I've never been with anyone other than Iona, in fact – but, Maker help me, with those words, with her body so close to mine, I'm tempted to just toss the bottle off the keep and carry her back to my quarters.

Instead, I turn my head slightly and lean in for a kiss. Our lips brush ever so slightly, teasing as our noses bump and her free hand goes to my face. It's more than either of us can take, and almost immediately the kiss deepens and then consumes us completely. Forget drinking – this is the sort of thing one shouldn't be doing on a ledge – because I'm wholly intoxicated now, by the feel of her lips and the taste of her mouth – and for the first time in months, I feel as though I'm where I belong.

How long the kiss goes on, I couldn't guess. When we finally break away, we're both breathing hard, and my heart feels like it's swollen to fill my chest, pressing out against my ribs out with every beat.

"I missed you," I whisper.

"I missed you, too," she says, and from the ache in her voice, I know she's felt my absence as acutely as I have hers.

Her hand falls away from my cheek, her fingers brushing my throat as they descend to my chest and effortlessly brush away the top two buttons of my shirt. She finds the necklace, a simple leather cord around my neck, and pulls it up, along with the wolf pendant it supports.

"You still wear it," she says.

"Always," I reply, fulfilling my part in our ritual.

...

 **At every meeting since our first** , achingly brief reunion at the Landsmeet, she has touched my necklace, and we've repeated these same words. They are a tradition now, a shorthand acknowledgment of our lonely separation, and also of our enduring commitment.

Before she gave the necklace to me, Iona had worn it as long as I could remember. She'd told me only that it was passed down through several generations of women in her family, a reminder of their elven heritage.

The pendant is small, barely filling the center of her palm, and its edges are smooth, worn down long before it came into my possession. The metal could be mistaken for white gold, perhaps, or even for silver, but under the right light, from the right angle, other colors assert themselves: sometimes the metal takes on an emerald hue, and at other times it's blue, but a deep blue, like the depths of a lake or the expanse of an empty night sky. Whatever the metal's properties, the pendant has always felt ancient to me, like a relic of forgotten ages, and although I have no tangible evidence to support this assumption, I cannot shake the feeling.

The pendant represents not just any wolf, but _the_ wolf: The Dread Wolf _Fen'Harel,_ the trickster god of the ancient elven pantheon. Beyond his name and reputation for deception, the only thing I know about Fen'Harel is that he is traditionally an outsider, a personification of otherness.

Truth be told, Fen'Harel is not the only thing I don't understand about traditional elven spirituality. Most elves, at least here in Highever, sing The Chant and pray to The Maker. As best I can tell, they honor the memory of their forgotten gods as a matter of tradition, not one of actual faith. This is probably the only reason the Chantry tolerates practices that could easily be viewed as idolatry.

However, if the books and the rumors are to be believed, there are some elves who still live apart from the Alienages, and honor the elven gods as more than a memory. These wandering clans, called the Dalish, make their living in the forests and wildernesses at the fringes, and follow the old ways of their people. Not surprisingly, the Dalish are a subject of endless fascination for Iona. It's to her great sorrow that these Dalish keep to themselves, trading only with the most remote human villages, if they show themselves at all.

During our long afternoons in the library, Iona was always especially interested in any texts that pertained to the Dalish. Since the Dalish maintain a reputation that at best portrays them as aloof gypsies, and at worst murderous bandits, there are precious few firsthand accounts of human interaction with the wild elves. The accounts that do exist vary widely, in tone and in credibility, but a recurring motif is that the Dalish do not worship Fen'Harel in the same way they do their gods.

Unlike the rest of their deities, Fen'Harel is not honored within Dalish encampments. Instead, the elves leave offerings at various shrines and alters that are scattered across Thedas – either remnants of the ancient elven empires, which predate even the Tevinter Imperium, or memorials built by the Dalish themselves. These shrines are particularly common in western Ferelden, at the borders of the sprawling Brecilian Forest, and also in the eastern passes through the Frostback Mountains, and often take the form of wolves like the one depicted on the pendant.

Why Iona's family has treasured a talisman that represents trickery and isolation, I have no idea. Perhaps the elves, cut off in the Alienages from their own legacy, and relatively powerless within the confines of human society, might feel a certain kinship to a trickster god who lives in forced separation from his brethren? I asked Iona, once, if this was the case, and if Fen'Harel was a god favored by the Alienage's elves.

"By a few," she said, "but not by most."

That's the feeling I've gotten, as well, not that my observations are worth much. Most elves, outside my family's household servants, are even more reluctant to speak with me than are human commoners. Even so, from what limited conversation I've managed, I have a sense that Iona is rather unique in her fascination with elven heritage.

As a child, perhaps this interest was simply a natural outgrowth of her innate curiosity and bookish inclinations. Since she left Highever, however, it seems her studies have grown into something like an obsession, I can't help suspecting that what she seeks in the past is a foundation on which to rebuild her own identity.

...

 **Our romance had gone on for almost a year,** and in our youth we were foolish enough to believe it a secret. Aeron knew, of course, as did a few of Iona's friends, but we had convinced ourselves that no one else in the castle had noticed that we spent every free moment together. Because we passed so many of those moments with only each other for company, I suppose we simply forgot that anyone else might notice that the two of us always seemed to disappear at the same time.

It was late in the spring, shortly after my sixteenth birthday. Aeron and I had only just graduated our studies, and were anxiously awaiting the ceremony at which our titles would be formally conferred. We had a great deal of time on our hands, and aside from the occasional errand for my parents, we were generally left to our own ends. During the day, while Iona tended to her duties – she had completed her schooling the previous year, and had taken a regular position on the household staff – I spent most of my time sparring with Aeron or practicing with my bow.

The evenings, though, belonged to Iona. We still spent time in the library, reading together, but more often we would kiss endlessly between the shelves, or spread a blanket on the roof of the keep, or lock ourselves inside my quarters. We hadn't made love yet, despite frequent, ribald suggestions from Aeron, but we had grown increasingly intimate over the year that followed our first kiss.

Even in a simple servant's smock, her hair tied back and her face smudged with dirt, Iona was gorgeous. But on the big rug in my room, lounging naked in front of the fire, its orange light glowing on the curves of her body, she was unequivocally hypnotic, a living embodiment of artistic beauty. Even if she remained still, I could watch her for hours, my heart tight in my chest, lust and love battling throughout my whole being.

No one else could see her quite the way I did then, and still do. I'm sure of that even today

But all the same, I should have known that her beauty would not go unnoticed. For a young elven girl, such notice can be dangerous, even in Highever. She had told me about a city constable posted at the Alienage gate who leered at her, but at the time she laughed it off. So I did, too.

I should have known better than to dismiss him so quickly, and Iona should have known as well, but we were young, and in love, and without even the barest semblance of wisdom.

...

 **A week before I was scheduled to take my title,** I awoke to find there were soldiers in the courtyard, dressed for combat. The gate in the inner curtain wall was locked, and bowmen were posted on the battlements. On the way down to breakfast, Fergus told me the gates between the outer ward and the city were closed as well, and that the outer walls were patrolled by soldiers as well.

"There's an execution today," he told me. He'd heard it from one of the family guardsmen, who told him that the condemned was a member of the constabulary, who had assaulted an elven girl. Foolish youth that I was, it didn't occur to me that the girl might be Iona – or at least, it didn't until we reached the dining hall, and found it full.

Almost everyone who lived or worked in the inner ward was inside the hall, from Brother Aldous and the rest of the clergy to Nan and the kitchen staff. Each door was secured by family guardsmen, all of them in full armor, with shields unslung. Among the sea of faces, I looked for Iona first, and did not find her; this did not immediately alarm me, until I realized that I could not see any of her family members, either. Her mother, her older sister, and two of her brothers all worked in the inner ward, and all attended their duties during the day. They should've been there.

I don't remember how long we spent in the dining hall, but I'm sure the time passed more quickly than it seemed. It was obvious that the guards were posted to keep us inside as much as to keep anyone else out, and in the absence of any concrete information, rumors spread like wildfire. The one thing everyone seemed certain of was that the threat was not external – there was no army sieging our gates.

One of the younger guardsmen told a maid he was sweet on that there was a riot in the eastern district of the city, and that there were fires in the merchant district and the Alienage. It fit with what Fergus had told me earlier. Even in Highever, the notion that a human could be put to death when the victim was an elf would not sit well with many – and to those men who already resented the relative equality enjoyed by our elven population, this would be one offense to many by my Father's government.

Disquiet slowly gave way to terror, as my growing fear for Iona was compounded by the realization that my parents were nowhere to be seen, either. We could see nothing from the windows, except a vaguely gray haze from the north that could have been smoke, and could hear nothing whatsoever. If there was unrest, I understood Father would likely be in the city below, trying to prevent further violence – and if there were really an execution, he would need to preside. But Mother should be here, safe, with us.

The room was stuffy by the time we heard the doleful tones of the bell in the city's square being tolled once, twice, then three times, before falling silent. There was no doubt now – the sentence had been carried out. Only three bells meant the deceased was not worthy of a full toll, a recounting of his years; that there were bells at all meant the condemned had been a human, as no bells were ever rung for the elves, regardless of the manner of their passing.

Moments later, Aeron slipped in through a side door. With his already imposing form and his mop of red hair, I saw him first, and it was immediately clear that he was looking for me, too. He shoved through the crowd toward my usual table, wild-eyed, head turning left and right; I was surprised he didn't call out my name.

"You need to come with me," he gasped when I had pushed my way to intercept his course.

Without any further explanation, Aeron grabbed my hand – an utterly uncharacteristic act – and dragged me back the way he'd come. He ignored my blurted demands for information, and when one of the guardsmen moved to block our exit, Aeron stopped him with a glare. Like most of the younger guards, he already knew and respected Aeron, and gave a slight nod before letting us pass.

In the stairwell, he dropped my hand and began to take the steps three at a time.

"What's going on?" I demanded. "Aeron? Aeron!"

"Please," he said, without any pause, "just trust me."

Moments later, he pushed open a door and we stepped out into the training ground behind the barracks, on the west side of the keep. Other than a handful of archers above us on the battlements, there was no one in sight.

"This way," Aeron said, gesturing I should follow as he jogged along the keep's wall. "We don't have much time!"

We passed between the barracks and the tower, emerging in the courtyard. Almost directly opposite us, at the foot of the gatehouse, four horses from our stable were hitched to a carriage I'd never seen before. About a dozen mounted guardsmen were maneuvering into a protective formation; more guards were on foot, arrayed in a half circle around the gate itself, and those not carrying pikes had their blades drawn. Clearly, they anticipated trouble once the gate opened, and I wondered if rioting had reached the walls of the inner ward. I could hear no such commotion outside, but the walls were high, and when I tried to focus, I realized that I could hear little beside my own blood pounding in my ears.

Without meaning to, I'd slowed from a jog to a walk, and then to something even slower, barely moving as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

My mother stood just outside the carriage, talking to an elven woman whose clothes identified her as a member of our family's personal staff. In retrospect, I should have recognized Iona's mother immediately, but I think at that point I was in shock. I knew, but I didn't _want_ to know, so it wasn't until I saw Iona herself that my mind caught up with reality. She came around the back of the carriage, her father beside her, his arm around her protectively, pulling her close to his side. Her head was down, her hair falling loose and tangled to cover much of her face, and she moved stiffly, almost with a limp; his head was up and alert, and his free hand rested on the pommel of a short-sword hanging at his belt.

 _Elves can't carry weapons,_ my mind told me.

My mind asked me: _Why isn't her hair brushed?_

As I took it in, everything seemed wrong, off somehow, as though the events playing out before me were a fever dream, a hallucinatory glimpse into some alien plane of existence.

"What…?" I couldn't find the words to finish my question.

"They're leaving," Aeron hissed, and shoved me forward. "You know what's happening out there, don't you?"

"Someone..." My feet moved beneath me, across grass and gravel, steadily regaining the momentum they'd lost as something like gravity pulled me toward the scene ahead. "Someone's been executed," I managed. "A constable?"

"Yeah," Aeron growls. "Some miserable fucking cunt from the night watch. He attacked her. He…well, shit, I…" He didn't need to finish the thought, and knew it. He still had a firm grip on my shoulder, but I think at that point it had nothing to do with keeping me moving. His grip tightened. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely.

One of the mounted guards noticed our approach and gestured to one of his comrades on the ground, a sergeant.

"Your father," Aeron continued, "he took the fucker's head. That's why they're rioting."

Aeron spat those last words. _That's why they're rioting._

I can still hear the way he said, and still feel the way it hit me.

Earlier, in the dining hall, everything had made sense. An elven girl, raped. The rapist's blood spilled, to satisfy my father's justice. The people, bucking against the perception of a disruption in the natural order. It rankled, but it was the way of things; it was as expected. I accepted it as simple cause and effect.

No longer.

"They're leaving," Aeron said. "It's not safe. I don't know if they're coming back."

The guard sergeant tapped Mother on the shoulder, and she turned, stiffening as soon as she saw us rushing across the courtyard.

"Get back inside!" she snapped, and I heard her so clearly that I realized we were almost to the carriage itself, nearly among the outer perimeter of the guards. "Liam! Get back inside! Aeron! Aeron!"

Of course, I ignored her. So did Aeron.

Iona had seen me, and eyes, wide and full of pain and confusion, had locked with mine.

"Sergeant!" Mother barked. "Get them inside!"

The sergeant turned and began to pace toward us, but he was too slow.

Iona broke away from her father's grip and pushed toward me. Her lip was cut and one of her eyes blackened, and she seemed unsteady on her feet, but she moved quickly, passing my mother and collapsing into my arms.

...

 **I remember what came next so clearly,** it could be happening in this very moment.

In one of many acts of selfless loyalty, Aeron moves between us and the advancing sergeant. He begins to talk. His hands are up, palms open, placating, but he is risking a beating nonetheless.

"What happened?" I ask, as Iona crushes herself against my chest. Her cheeks are wet with tears. "Are you all right?"

"I'm sorry," she sobs, and her hand finds mine.

"Are you all right?" I press. "What's happening?"

"Sergeant!" Mother is yelling, stalking toward us too now.

Iona's father is calling her name.

The sergeant loses patience and shoves Aeron roughly, sending him tumbling into the dirt.

Iona presses something into my palm. My fingers close over the wolf pendant, although I don't yet recognize what it is.

"I'm sorry," she repeats, and breaks away. Her eyes find mine, and what I see breaks my heart.

I still don't fully comprehend what's happened, or the scene that is playing out in front of me, but in my heart, I understand enough. She's hurting, and, worse still, she's being taken from me. I begin to cry.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm sorry," she repeats, and begins to walk back toward her family.

The sergeant's hands are on my shoulders now. He's surprisingly gentle, considering the strength with which he threw Aeron to the ground. "Come on, milord," he says, almost pleading with me.

Iona looks over her shoulder once more, and mouths the words _I love you._

I only have time to nod once in affirmation, desperate in my conviction, before the sergeant is hustling me back toward the keep.

...

 **Until the following morning,** all I knew was that Iona was gone. Where, or for how long, I was left to puzzle over. That she had been raped, or at least the victim of an attempt, I could piece together; whatever had happened, it must have occurred on her way home from her duties in the keep, as I'd not seen her after the afternoon meal on the day before the riots.

Aeron knew her assailant was a constable assigned to the night watch in the Alienage, and everyone knew that Father had ordered executed almost immediately following determination of his guilt. That unrest followed was self-explanatory, although the assumptions underpinning the expectation of riots were something I would never again take for granted.

Smoke rose from the city for the rest of the day after the carriage departed, and the castle remained in a state of heightened security. Aeron and I were confined to my quarters by the sergeant, on my parents' orders. There were two windows in my room, from which we could observe not only the plumes of dark smoke coiling up from the Alienage, but also the groups of archers on both the inner and the outer curtain walls, and the armed patrols in the courtyard and along the few alleys of the outer ward we could see.

We were kept under guard until breakfast time the next day, and even then were not permitted to go down to the dining hall. Instead, servants brought us an abnormally generous meal to be served in my quarters. Some of the servants were elven, and I knew one in particular was acquainted with Iona's family, but when I pressed him for information, he firmly demurred. His words were polite, but his eyes were cold, accusing even. It was an expression I was unused to receiving from persons of any race, but one that I would to accept over the following months, as the elves who remained behind in the Alienage continued to suffer in the aftermath of my father's justice.

That morning, my parents entered as soon as the servants departed, before Aeron and I had begun our meal. They did not reproach either of us for our interruption in the courtyard, nor did they offer any consolation to me. In fact, although the truth hung over our brief conversation like thick smoke from a blocked chimney, they did not even mention my relationship with Iona. Facts were all they offered, and in retrospect, I suppose that was a kindness.

Iona had been accosted by the constable the night before the riots. He met her just inside the Alienage gates, and when she refused his advances, he beat her until she was nearly unconscious, dragged her into an alley, and had his way. She was found soon after and taken to her parents, who were too afraid of the constabulary to make a report that night; instead, her mother spoke to mine when she arrived at the keep the following morning.

The constable was convicted by the testimony of men who heard him bragging of his conquest at a tavern; some of them were his fellow constabulary, men who would likely never have reported him if not questioned by my father's guardsmen. When confronted by the guard, the constable denied nothing, and seemed bewildered when he was placed under arrest. "She was just a knife ear," he told the guards.

Many others in our city no doubt harbored the same attitude toward non-humans as that constable, and many harbor them still. What set him apart was not the ugliness in his soul, but his ignorance: he had only recently moved to Highever, and wherever in the world he had come from, it was a safe guess that he would have suffered no consequence for his act.

Instead, he lost his head in the village square.

The execution was delayed only long enough to mobilize the guard and militia, as well as the more reliable of the constables, for the unrest that Father knew would follow. And follow it did. At the castle gates, working class men and women yelled and shook their fists, and some threw rotten vegetables and even bricks at the guards; in the port district, elven businesses were torched and elven boats scuttled, but there was no loss of life.

The elves knew what was coming as surely as my father, and retreated to the relative safety of the Alienage. The constables were withdrawn from the Alienage and sent to other districts to keep order, and in their place, militia and guardsmen had taken positions at each of the Alienages entrances. Despite these precautions, and roving patrols within the Alienage itself, agitators broke through several times, and about a dozen homes were burnt to the ground before order was restored.

Before the day ended, two soldiers were seriously injured by thrown bricks, three fishermen killed by the guard while trying to force their way into the castle, and scores of elves lost their homes and livelihoods. Curfew was imposed, and by midnight, order was fully restored.

...

 **While my father presided over the execution** , mother saw to the safety of Iona's family. A human's blood had been spilled in retribution for the virtue of an elf. Neither the fact of Iona's innocence, nor the complete absence of input from family in the judicial proceedings, would be enough to protect them. Even after the human outcry quieted, even after peace was restored, reprisal would be all but guaranteed.

So, before the constable's body was cold on the ground, they were loaded into the carriage and escorted from the city by the mounted guards, who rode with them to Bann Loren's estate in Denerim. Mother's friendship with Lady Landra assured that she could ask anything of her friend, including a place for Iona and her kin among Landra's servants, either in Denerim or in Caer Oswin.

"It was the best we could do for them," Mother told me. "Away from here, they'll be safe, and they'll be well cared for by Landra."

Time has proved Mother correct. Landra and her husband provided housing for Iona's entire family in Denerim's Alienage, and Iona has risen to a place of honor among Landra's retinue. So far from Highever, I doubt anyone they encounter, even among the elves themselves, knows what transpired, and I am equally certain that no one from Highever – not even the constable's family – would think to go looking for them.

I can be certain of this because when the carriage left Highever, carrying Iona within, an uglier utility was achieved: my father issued a proclamation that stated Iona and her family had been exiled, a just and fitting punishment for "her part" in what occurred.

He told me of the proclamation with no hesitation, and met my incredulous gaze without apology. Our first duty is always to our people, he said, and this lie was well worth telling if it helped the city to heal.

...

 **What transpired that night,** and the consequences that followed, fundamentally ruptured Iona's understanding of her place in the world, and indeed the place of her species. This was compounded by the more immediate changes necessitated by the move to Denerim, and the transition to serving Bann Loren and Lady Landra, rather than my family. A new Alienage, new masters, a new city, all that change compounded upon the trauma she had already suffered.

And into all this, a child.

Iona's daughter was born nine months later, hundreds of miles away from the site of her forcible conception, a babe unaware of the coldness of the world she was being born into. Like all half-born, she had human features – our smaller eyes and rounded ears – but was slender and lithe, taking after her mother's people.

When I saw Iona again, at the Landsmeet, I had no idea. She didn't tell me at our next meeting, either, but in a letter sent some time after, when her daughter was nearly two years old. Iona told me she'd chosen the name Amethyne, and I understood immediately. Amethyne was the name of a scholar who'd penned one of Iona's favorite volumes about the Dalish elves. During better times, we'd read the book together in Highever's library. Like the locket I wear, and the stories in those texts, her daughter's name is another expression of Iona's interest in the alluring history of her people.

Once upon a time, elves were not subject to the cruel whims of human desire, nor subject to the unwritten laws of a society that cheapened their very existence. Once upon a time, elves were not segregated into the slums of sprawling cities, forced to beg for scraps when nobles passed or huddle together for safety when torches were lit. Once upon a time, Iona might not have been a victim, nor would her victimization have become cause for flight from her home.

Maybe it's arrogant, but I wonder if Iona might also dream that once upon a time, she could've married the man she loved, rather than accepting a secret role as beloved mistress.

And maybe I'm fooling myself, but I also like to imagine there is also hope in Iona's obsession – hope that if it was once so, perhaps it might be so again – hope that Amethyne might grow up with a different place in the world than the one to which Iona was consigned from birth.

...

" **How is she?"** I ask Iona in the present.

We are laying on our backs, looking up at the night sky, only our feet extending into the space beyond the keep's walls. Her head rests against my shoulder, and are hands our clasped between our bodies. We've been up here almost an hour, and the bottle of wine is long-finished; it seems that, at last Iona's storm of questions is ended as well. She knows that Aeron will join the Grey Wardens, and that I may become Teyrn; more importantly, she has been caught up on the gossip and idle trivia of Castle Highever, from affairs between servants to Nan's ongoing tyranny, from the repainting of murals to Oren's growth into boyhood.

Talk of Oren, of course, turns to talk of Amethyne.

When she answers, I can hear her smile in each word. "Bigger every day. Smarter, too." Iona rolls toward me, onto her side, and drums her fingers on my chest. "Honestly, she's starting to be trouble – we have to keep at least one eye on her all the time, or else she's out in the street begging cakes off the baker, or arguing with a beggar about what the color green looks like."

I laugh. "Not a bookworm like you, then?"

"Not yet," Iona says, "but we're working on it."

At first, it was hard to wrap my head around the idea that Iona could be a mother – let alone such a loving one, given the circumstances of Amethyne's conception. The pain was fresh in my mind still, and it was hard for me to understand how Iona could bring herself to love a living, breathing reminder of that pain so unconditionally. Even more dissonant, in so many of my memories of Iona – each one achingly fresh, even years after she was stolen from me – she and I were little more than children ourselves. How could a child become a mother?

But that confusion ended years ago, in the months after we began to write. Now, Amethyne seems as much a part of Iona as her laugh or her pointed ears.

Iona rolls further still, so she's propped up, half on my chest, half supported by one elbow on the stone, and looks me full in the face, her eyes sparkling. "She's learning _elven_ , Liam!" she exclaims. Her smile and her excitement are contagious. "Elven!"

"What? How?"

"The hahren," she says. She's told me before that the word _hahren_ literally translates to "uncle," although the connotation is closer to "godfather" or "elder." When used as a title, it refers to an elected patriarch who shepherds day to day life in Alienages. "His name is Valerian. He teaches all the children old elven, and he'll teach anyone else who wants to know, too."

"Are you learning, then?"

In her studies, Iona has picked up more than a few terms and even phrases, but learning to actually speak the language of her ancestors has always been one of Iona's dreams.

"I have very little time," she says, and her tone is regretful, but her eyes are sparkling. "I've learned a bit, all the same."

"Oh?"

She nods, and stretches forward to plant a brief kiss on the side of my mouth.

" _Ar lath ma,_ " she says softly, " _vhenan_."

I recognize none of the words, but the way she says them – I really don't need any translation.

"Does that mean…?"

"…I love you," she says, confirming what I already know. " _Vhenan_ means 'my heart.'"

"You'll have to teach me how to say it, then. If it's – is it okay for humans to learn elven?"

"Of course," she says, and then pauses, her brows furrowing. "Actually, I have no idea. So much of who we are has been lost. I really don't know." Her expression clears, and she kisses me again. "For you, we'd make an exception."

"Is that – is it common, hahrens speaking elven? Sarethia doesn't, does she?"

I've met Sarethia, the elven woman who has overseen Highever's Alienage since before I was born, a handful of times. She has never struck me as the sort of person who would have time for studying the past, let alone interest.

"Gods, no," Iona says. "She never knew what to make of me, pestering her for bits of history. But I don't know if it's common elsewhere. Every Alienage I've been to is different, and I've been told they are much different in Orlais. Much worse."

"What about Denerim? Are things – are they bad there?"

In recent years, whenever we've spoken of the place elves hold in Ferelden society, or the details of life in the Alienage, I've felt a marked sense of discomfort that I don't recall from our younger days. Every time I acknowledge the ugly realities that face Iona daily, even in passing, I can't help feeling that I'm also poking at the wounds of four years ago, which must still be raw today when dragged to light. Worse still, I feel as though I am prying into difficulties about which I haven't the right to ask, since I've not shared in them. Even now, when I ask how bad conditions are in the Denerim Alienage, I'm acutely aware that I have no personal frame of reference. I was born to privilege, and live the life of nobility.

When I've tried to talk with fishermen or soldiers or blacksmiths, it's often been painfully apparent to me that they live a life I cannot comprehend, and I a life that they envy and resent in equal measure. Their eyes silently accuse, or judge, or idolize, or sometimes all three. And whatever differences separate me from those men, how much more so is my experience divorced from Iona's?

If she feels the same discomfort with these questions, however, she's never given any indication to me. I've never seen that judgment in her eyes, nor the accusation, and certainly never the idolatry. She rarely goes out of her way to reference to our vastly different stations in life, unless it's to tease me.

"It has its share of good and bad," she says, in answer to my question. "It's so much bigger than the Alienage here, it's hard to compare. No one in Denerim stands up for us, not like your parents do, but I think the humans there – well, there's so many of them, and so many of us, that it's almost like we're all anonymous. We leave them alone, and for the most part, they leave us alone, too."

"For the most part?"

"For the most part," she repeats. "Every now and then, the worst of the shems come into the slums, looking for trouble." Shem is an elven pejorative for us humans. "It's usually packs of nobles," she explains, "and they're always drunk and always young. They'll prowl around the gates, or on the market bridge, and try to provoke an excuse for violence. I haven't seen it myself, but I'm told they're mostly cowards trying to show each other up. The elders know how to handle them, and I'm told the city guard are actually quite fair to us, so long as we remember our place."

She says it so matter-of-factly, like the weather. _Mind our place._

"And if someone forgets 'their place?'" I ask, trying to be mindful of the unearned bitterness in my tone.

"Oh, look at you," she says, shifting again, so she's laying across my chest, our legs tangled, noses almost touching. She flicks her thumb against my chin affectionately. "I won't lie, it's a bit adorable that it makes you angry. But life is what life is, Liam. You know as well as I do, we all have our places in the Maker's dance, fair or not, and we all learn the steps if we want to keep dancing."

Even as she speaks of acceptance, there's sadness in her eyes. I want to argue with her, but what would I say that she doesn't already know? Nothing I could say will change the realities in the Alienages.

"Are you safe, at least?" I ask at last.

"You really _are_ adorable," she says. "And, yes, we're safe. People blame the shems when beggars or prostitutes go missing, but in the Alienage, we're more apt to be robbed or cheated by our own than attacked by shemlen."

"We maybe have different definitions of safe," I suggest, and she laughs.

"No! Honestly, it's safer than most of the other districts in Denerim. The Alienage is not a prison, Liam. The walls protect us more than they keep us inside, and the hahrenand the vhenadahlshelter us. We dance, we sing, we've even been known to drink. And we look out for each other. And I think we appreciate it more than most humans do. Not your family, but…Maker bless them, Landra and Bann Oswin? They have everything, and they appreciate nothing."

"Well, you know what I think of Landra."

"Please," she says. "You didn't have to carry her all the way to the library tonight." She giggles. "I don't think she'd have minded if you did, though."

"Oh, no," I laugh. "She wants Aeron, not me."

"She has better taste than I do," she teases. "She is a sad old drunk, sometimes, but she does have a good heart, Liam. When we first moved to Denerim, she offered to let my family live in her manor. I forget what she offered to call us, but she'd have given papa some sort of important title to justify us living there."

It's always irritating, learning the good deeds of people I can't stand. "I didn't know that," I say.

Iona nods. "When she made me one of her ladies in waiting, she asked again. She asked me and Amethyne to stay with her. She said we didn't have to, of course, but she said she's quite fond of us, and wants us to be safe. I tried to tell her the same thing I'm trying to tell you – the Alienage is the best place for us. Not just because it's safe, but because I want Amethyne to know what it means to be elven. As much as possible, at least."

She is quiet for a minute, staring past me, out over the city, I think. I tighten my arm around her, to let her know I'm still listening.

"So much of who we are has been lost," she says slowly. "But Hahren Valerian and the other elders work hard to preserve what's left. They speak the old tongue, and there are shrines to some of the old gods underneath the vhenadahl. My daughter doesn't have to scavenge through old archives to learn about the Dales, or Arlathan, or the gods."

"It sounds like Denerim is a good fit for you," I say. "I'm glad."

"If it weren't for you," she says, and kisses me again, "I might wish I'd been born there."

"And Amethyne – does she like it, too? Learning about elves?"

"She's barely four," Iona points out. "She likes cookies and dolls. Everything else is just what happens in between naps and snacks. But…it _is_ absolutely precious to hear her trying to speak elven. She has such a lisp!"

I laugh.

"And how about _your_ daughter," Iona asks, flicking my chin again. "How is dear old Madra?"

"She misses you. But I think she's a little like what you said about Amethyne – she mostly just loves snacks and naps."

"It's good for her sake you're turning the Wardens down," she says. "Poor thing would've been lost without you."

"Oh, she'd have come with me," I say. "Whether I wanted her or not. Mother would never let me leave her behind. Or Nan, for that matter."

"That sweet dog, a Warden?" Iona sounds skeptical. When she left Highever, Madra was still a puppy, all feet and fat rolls, slobbering on anyone who would pick her up.

"Oh, she'd make a better Warden than me," I say quickly. "You should've seen her tearing into those bog rats. She's Mabari; she's got war in her blood."

"If you say so," Iona says, and then suddenly dissolves into a fit of giggles.

"What?"

" _Barkspawn_! You could call her _bark_ spawn. If she were a Warden!"

It takes a second for the pun to sink it, but when it does I start to laugh too, and Iona repeats the name, and the more we laugh, the harder it is to stop. Maybe it's the wine, or the lateness of the hour. Maybe it's the relief after missing each other so much, for so long. Or maybe it's just a good pun.

When silence finally falls again, both our faces are streaked with tears and my sides ache. I'm still smiling, and so is Iona. She rests her head on my chest, and for a time, neither of us speak, content to feel each other breathing and listen to sounds of the night.

Eventually, when the silence has gone on long enough, I whisper in her ear that I love her.

She twists onto her elbow again, and stares at me without answering.

"Do you _want_ to be the Teyrn?" she asks at last.

"If it's my duty."

"Thank you, Ser Cousland, for the illuminating answer." She's mocking me, obviously, but not unkindly. "Duty and all that, I know. But, is it something you want? Would you rather have been a Warden?"

I lay my head back, staring up at the sky, breaking eye contact as I search for an answer. Finding an answer for Duncan's offer was not easy, but not because of any burning desire to be a Warden; by the same token, remaining in Highever seemed the right choice only because it was the best fulfillment of duty. But that is only a repetition of my family's credo, one that Iona has already teased me for choosing as my answer.

In the midst of all the day's hubbub and confusion, the only thing I'd really _wanted_ was for the world to stop changing around me. Beyond that, the question of what I desire is functionally moot.

In a perfect world, though, what would my life be?

"I'm not sure," I say, meeting her gaze again. "They're two paths, I suppose, among many. You can laugh, and I know my family clings to the notion of duty a bit tightly, but I chose to stay because it seemed like the better service to my people, not because it seemed like a nicer path to choose."

She nods once, but doesn't say anything.

"Honestly," I say, "there's only one path I'd want to walk, and it's not a path we can choose."

A sad smile plays across her face. She knows exactly what I mean.

Something crashes behind us, near the center of the keep's roof. Almost immediately, Aeron's voice booms out: "Put your clothes on! Put your clothes on, for Maker's sake!" His words slur slightly, but otherwise he sounds as boisterous and cheerful as ever.

"We're wearing clothes, you daft tit!" Iona calls out good-naturedly, pushing herself up and twisting to look for Aeron. They've always had an affectionately adversarial relationship.

"Iona!" he calls out, delighted. " _Sweeeet_ _I-ohhhh-nnnaa_!"

When she and I first fell for each other, Aeron used to tease me by calling her Sweet Iona behind her back. Typically, he soon moved on to addressing her as such to her face, and the nickname has stuck, at least where Aeron is concerned.

"You big lout," she says, rising, and they embrace.

"It's good to see you," he tells her, and then releases her from his bear hug and kisses her on each cheek. "I was afraid Liam was up here with some nasty harlot. Imagine my delight to find him with you!"

"You're keeping him away from harlots, I hope?" she asks.

"All the harlots are mine," Aeron says. "So, yes, you could say that I'm keeping them away from him, at least."

"Well, you have my thanks, I suppose?" Iona says.

"Speaking of harlots," I say, "what are you doing up here? It's your last night as a non-Warden. You should be knee deep in liquor and loose women."

"I brought the liquor with me," Aeron replies immediately, lifting a corked bottle in each hand. "As for loose women, there was no chance of finding any of them with the Wardens. Some of them all right, but Landra's nephew? He had all the personality of a burlap sack full of old cotton."

"Oh, Maker!" Iona exclaims. "Isn't he _dull_?"

Aeron laughs. "That's a kind word for it."

"So you won't be chasing skirts with Ser Jory, then?" I ask.

"I won't be chasing anything but darkspawn with that man. He _defines_ earnest."

"You sure you still want to join?" I ask, teasing. "You do love those skirts..."

"The Wardens don't require vows of celibacy. I checked. Besides, I can find those loose women anywhere." His goofy grin turns suddenly sincere. "But I don't know the next time I'll have a chance to drink with my two oldest friends. It's an easy choice."

I barely have time to be touched before he turns to me.

"Besides," he says, "I had to know – do you have an answer for Duncan?"

...

 **It's harder to explain my decision to Aeron** than it has been to anyone else, and the foggy buzz of the alcohol isn't helping either. Still, I have to try. The three of us lean against the stone battlements, Iona on my right and Aeron on my left, and I stumble through my explanation, half-apologizing every step of the way, having to force myself to meet his eyes. He listens unquestioningly until I tell him about Mother's disclosure on the walls – and then he breaks into an enormous grin.

"You aren't seriously telling me you're surprised, are you?" he demands happily once I've finished. "You are such an ass! How could you not know?"

I'm not surprised he's excited, but I'm baffled as to why he thinks I should've known. I try to explain this, and he just laughs me off.

"Too modest," he tells Iona, as though I'm not present.

"You're not disappointed?" I ask.

Aeron looks at me like I've sprouted antlers and braided my nose hair. "Disappointed?"

"That I'm staying here."

"Fuck no," he says, a bit incredulous. "I'd only want you to join if it was what _you_ wanted. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll miss you – especially if they're all as serious as Jory and Duncan and that lot – but –" He glances to either side, searching for the right words like he might actually find them floating in the air. "Well, hell. If anything, I should be apologizing to you."

"To me?"

"He really is dense," Aeron says to Iona, but there's an unexpected vulnerability in his voice. He turns back to me. "Yes, to you, Liam. I'm not sure you how you missed it, but I've known for a long time that your parents would choose you. How could they not? Listen, I love you like a brother, so don't take this wrong, but you're not the best warrior. You don't think tactically, like Fergus does, and you're definitely not as charming as me. And you're a pretty good manager, but you're nowhere near as good at counting beans and moving chess pieces as your father."

"Oh, yes," I interrupt sarcastically, as Aeron pauses for breath. "When you put it like that, I really should've seen this coming."

"Would you shut up a minute and let me talk for a second?" Aeron snaps, like he always has to struggle to get a word in edgewise.

Iona and I both laugh, which puzzles him for a minute. Then he nods grudgingly.

"All right, okay, I deserve that," he says, "but, seriously, listen to me. You know you'll make a great Teyrn? You _love_ this place. You love the land, the castle, the people, more than anyone I know."

"Sure," I acknowledge, "but so do you. So does Fergus."

"No, I love _you_ ," Aeron says. "You and your family. Fergus loves his family, and drinking, and maybe his men. He and I, we're pretty similar that way. I sit through all those fucking petty courts and dick measuring contests and arguments about who has tastier grain because it's my job, and because you're my friend. Fergus doesn't even go to them anymore. You? You actually give a shit."

I'm a bit dumbfounded. I've never felt like I particularly cared about any of those duties, but I suppose I've always taken them seriously, no matter how much they bored or irritated me. Maybe that's the same thing, then?

"Hell, it's probably the worst thing about you," he presses. "It's also the reason I ought to apologize to you for joining the Wardens."

"You don't need to-" I start.

Iona puts a hand on my arm, and I shut my mouth.

"No, I do," Aeron said. "I wish you'd come with me, only so I wouldn't have to worry about you. You're your own worst enemy, sometimes. It's like your parents branded this whole notion of duty on your forehead the day you were born. This place will eat you alive if you let it, Liam, and I'm afraid you _will_ let it."

For some reason, a lump rises in my throat. This has not been a good day for stoic manliness; I feel like I've been on the brink of tears, on the verge of panic, and in the clutches of doubt more today than in probably the whole rest of the year. And that doesn't even take into account Iona's presence, or her body pressed against my arm as I lean on the stone wall.

"A big part of me thinks I should stay here," Aeron says. "So that's why I feel like I should apologize to you."

"So why are you going?" I blurt, and realize belatedly that this question – far more than the own questions of worthiness or self-determination that have plagued me throughout the day – is at the heart of everything.

More of my feelings must have crept into my words than I intended, because Iona squeezes my arm tight against her, protective or comforting, and I see a flash of pain pass across Aeron's face. His expression cuts me to my core. What right do I have to question his choice?

"I'm sorry," I say, "I didn't-"

"No, it's okay," he says. "I – I'm not going to lie to you, partly I want to go because, well, why wouldn't I? Fighting is the one thing I'm really, really good at. Well, fucking and drinking, but those aren't of any use to anyone else, really. You can do so much for your people, Liam. But me – I love you like a brother, but all I'll ever amount to is your bodyguard, and your friend. And I'll always be your friend, I swear it. But being a Warden – yeah, it's an adventure – but it's the highest service I can render. You can do so much good here, but for me, this is the most good I'll _ever_ be able to do."

He looks down at his feet, bashful in a way I don't recall ever seeing him. He kicks the wall.

"Does that make sense?" he asks, looking back up, meeting my eyes almost pleadingly.

I nod, and then begin to chuckle, because the alternative is probably a sob. "Yes," I say, "except that you're an idiot for thinking you have to apologize."

"Well, fuck you, then," Aeron says through his own laughter. He wraps me in a bear hug – incidentally, the only sort of hug one can get from Aeron.

As he does, Iona sighs and rolls her eyes. "Boys," she mutters, but not without affection.

 **For maybe the next hour** , the three of us stand against the battlements, passing the bottles back and forth, looking out over the courtyard that used to be our entire world. We laugh almost without pause as we revisit old memories and retell old stories, and more than a few of the tiny figures moving across the grass below us look up, puzzled, as our laughter echoes down to their ears.

That familiar sensation – the desire to freeze time, pausing its progression indefinitely to savor the perfection of this moment – the same sense of comfortable belonging that I felt this morning, in the kitchen – permeates the night air, almost crushing my heart with its intensity.

We have neared the bottom of both bottles, and the middle of the night – not to mention the depths of drunken nostalgia – when Aeron raises his high in the air.

"To the lot of us," he says. "May the Maker bless you with happy lives and many little children, bastard-born or not!"

Iona has the other bottle, and has to stand on her toes to clink her bottle against his.

"And to you," she says. "The biggest ass I know. Maker bless your blade with the blood of a thousand darkspawn!"

Upon being called an ass, Aeron dissolves into laughter, and they both knock back deep swigs.

Iona passes the bottle to me, and I raise it as well. Typically, I've got no jests, nor anything particularly eloquent.

"Like you said, to the lot of us," I say. "Back here again." I lift the bottle, and clink it against Aeron's as well. "If only this were all of life."


	8. Blood on the Bear's Claws

**CHAPTER SIX:** Blood on the Bear's Claws

 **Madra's bark pierces the night.**

I jerk awake, disoriented, not sure whether the noise was part of a dream. My room is dark, lit only by embers from the fireplace, and the keep is silent.

It's warm underneath my thick comforter, but the air on my face is bitingly cold. I can feel the smooth skin of Iona's arm across my chest; she is curled at my side, her head on my shoulder, her breasts warm against my ribs. She stirs slightly, makes a sleepy little groan, and I squeeze her tighter against me.

Between the chill and the dark, I'd guess it has been at least a few hours since we retired. Perhaps an hour more remains before sunrise.

Too early for Madra to be demanding her morning walk, then.

Must have dreamt it…

...

 **Madra barks again,** and now there's no mistaking the sound. Nor is there any mistaking her mood, as the bark trails off into a low, menacing growl.

Iona stirs, pushes herself up onto an elbow. "What?" she mumbles.

My eyes are adjusting, and I can see Madra is crouched before the door to the commons, her back to the bed, her head down, every muscle in her body coiled to strike.

Mabari hounds are loyal pets, adept hunters, and playful companions, but they are bred first and foremost for war. Madra is no exception. Her instinct for violence is razor sharp, and if she believes there is danger outside my door, I would be a fool to doubt her.

Iona slips out of bed, taking one of the blankets with her and wrapping it around her naked body. "Want me to let her out?" she asks, sleepily.

"No!" I hiss, holding up my hand as an added warning.

I stand and pull on a pair of trousers that were draped at the foot of the bed. As quietly as I can, the stone floor cold beneath my bare feet, I move across the room to my weapons stand. A sword rests across the top pegs, and below it my bow; knives hang from hooks on one leg of the stand, and a quiver full of arrows from the other.

Taking one of the knives, I move to the door and listen. Madra is beside me, still growling, and I rest my free hand on the crown of her head, hoping to silence her long enough to hear some clue as to what has her on edge. If anything, though, her growl deepens, and I feel muscles cording tighter and tighter down her back.

"Hush, girl," I whisper.

No sooner have I done so than the door is struck with enormous force. In the stillness of the night, the sound is deafening; I startle backwards several paces, and behind me, Iona lets out a stifled cry.

There's scarcely time to tighten my grip on the knife before another strike splinters the wood around the iron crossbar, and the door flies inward. To my shame, I flinch away even further.

Just as quickly, though, the instincts beaten into me by all those mornings drilling behind the barracks take over. I raise the knife high, cocking my arm as I lean forward, putting all my weight on the balls of my feet.

Three men rush through the shattered doorway. All wear armor. Each carries a sword, unsheathed, the edges gleaming in the darkness.

Madra leaps forward, teeth bared, jaws wide.

In midair, she catches the first man's sword arm, sinking her teeth in deep. He yells in surprise and pain, and her weight spins him sideways until he crashes against the wall, Madra's jaws still latched onto him, dragging him down.

Behind me, Iona screams again.

The first man is on his knees, still yelling. He's trying to reach far enough enough around Madra's body to switch his sword from right hand to left.

His companions continue to advance, ignoring him. Their focus is on me.

My knife will be next to useless against their swords. I can't begin to match their reach, and I'll be unable to parry, besides.

I've got to get close or I'm as good as dead, and Iona with me.

No time for second guessing. I launch myself at the nearest assailant with all the power my legs can muster.

As I do, he begins to swing his sword.

I'm barely fast enough, passing just inside the sweep of his arm. As the flat of his blade bounces harmlessly off my back, I ram my shoulder into his chest, trying to knock him off balance. At the same time, I jab with my knife, but thick leather armor turns the point away.

He pivots his hips. He shoves me with one hand, to create distance, and with the other draws his sword back for another swing.

This is a dance I know. I've followed the steps dozens of times in sparring matches.

I shift with him, using the momentum from his shove to my advantage, twisting to keep close to him. As we move, I sweep my knife up, and score a deep cut on the inside of his left elbow. He grunts and jerks the arm back.

Even injured, he doesn't let up his attack. He whips the butt of his sword toward my head, not cutting but striking, hoping to stun me. I don't have time to dodge. All I can do is duck my bring up my free arm, taking the full force of the blow on my shoulder.

It staggers me almost to my knees, and I have to focus just to keep a grip on my knife.

Already bent forward, I lunge and wrap my arms around his knees, hoping to tackle him to the ground. Instead, we both crash against a wall and shimmy sideways along its length, our feet scrambling beneath us.

Our grappling presents the last attacker with a chance to join the fight. He grabs me by the arm, his fingers ruthlessly tight, digging deep into skin and muscle. He rips me away from the wall, and the man I was grappling with loses his footing and falls to the floor.

I flail my arm, trying to pull away, but he's too strong. He's trapped me now, and any moment now he'll run me through.

Instead, I hear something solid strike his head. From the corner of my eyes, I can see Iona has hit him with a long brass candlestick, and is winding up for another blow. In the right hands, the candlestick could be a lethal weapon, but she has neither the height nor the strength to land a killing blow.

Still, she's caused enough pain to distract him, and his grip on my arm falters. It's not enough to break free, but I'm able to twist toward him.

As I do, I kick the other attacker, the one I tried to tackle, who is just now righting himself. The ball of my foot connects perfectly with his nose, and I feel cartilage give way, and the man falls backwards, landing unceremoniously on his ass.

He's out of the fight for a few more seconds.

While I'm landing my kick, the man who still holds my arm backhands Iona, her neck whipping sideways as her legs buckle beneath her.

I continue to twist, hoping to turn far enough to slash at the arm that grips me. Instead, having dealt with Iona, the man throws me, hard. His push is as strong as his grip, and I hit the far wall.

The shock of the impact sends pinpricks of white-hot light racing across my field of vision.

As I stagger upright, I can see all three of the attackers are back on their feet. I'm not sure where Madra is, but the man she bit has lost the use of his sword arm, which hangs limp and mangled at his side.

The strong one, the one who just threw me, looms over Iona. He has her cornered between the bed and the wall. She's already bleeding profusely from one arm as he draws his sword back for a killing blow.

There's no way I have time to reach her, so I gamble, and hurl my knife at the back of his neck.

Even with a blade that's properly weighted, I'm barely proficient at throwing knives. And in any case, this knife was not crafted for throwing. Even as it leaves my hand, I can tell my aim is off. By all rights, the throw should miss.

But it doesn't. Hearing or sensing something, the strong one turns his head – directly into the knife's path.

It's splits his eyeball straight down the middle, popping it like an overripe grape, and opens a gruesome wound down across his cheek.

He shrieks and collapses on his knees. He's not dead, but he's definitely not a threat anymore. One down, and I've bought Iona a few seconds, too.

With every ounce of breath in my lungs, I bellow out a challenge. It's not likely to intimidate the attackers, but it might bring the guards who should be patrolling the common room below.

And as I scream, I race across my bedroom. I slam into the nearest attacker, the one whose sword arm was savaged by Madra. Maybe because he's carrying his sword in his off-hand, the force of the impact sends the sword sliding from his hold.

We crash to the ground together, and for a moment I'm on top.

Before I can go for his eyes or his throat, though, he bucks his hips and I find he has also trapped one of my legs. I'm helpless as he flips us, rolling on top of me.

Immediately, he punches me in the face once, twice, three times with his good hand. I feel at least one of my teeth break free, and blood fills my mouth. Then he stops hitting me, and I feel his weight on my chest shift.

I blink through sweat and blood, and see he is reaching out for his sword, his fingers closing around the pommel.

Desperately, I try to throw him off, clawing at his armor and scrabbling with my feet for something to brace against, but it's no use. He has the sword now, and begins to raise it for a killing blow.

Just as I begin to accept that it's over, he pitches sideways, thrown off me in by a blur of dark fur and bared teeth.

His cry of surprise is cut short as he falls to the floor with Madra on top.

I can't see what happens next, but I can hear Madra kill him. It's vicious, a brutal harmony of growling, and panicked gargles, and tearing flesh. There's no time to watch, or to be repulsed, or to feel relief.

The last assailant still on his feet is the man with the broken nose. He's cautious now, his guard up, but he's moving with quick, determined strides. His allies are dead or injured, and his left arm is cut. He needs to end this quickly, and I can see in his eyes that he believes he will.

I lurch forward, crouching, picking up the sword that belonged to the man Madra is killing.

As I rise, I bring the blade with me, barely deflecting a powerful strike that bounces my sword's point off the stone floor and sends me stumbling backwards.

He presses after me, swinging again and again, keeping me on the defensive. As we circle each other, I know I'm outmatched.

My legs brush against the bed frame. Desperate, I grasp with my free hand, and find a shirt, discarded on the mattress. Clawing as much of the fabric together as I can, and throw it at his head, hoping to create even a momentary distraction.

The trick pays off. Instinctively, the man flinches away, creating just enough of an opening for me to jab with the point of the sword.

Luck favors me again.

Instead of trying to parry or even dodge, he brings his left arm up, almost like he's holding a shield. My blade slices across his hand, severing fingers, and then sinks several inches into his chest.

He seems as surprised as I am by his mistake.

Dying, but not yet dead, he swings his sword once more, a weak strike that's easy to dodge. As I sidestep away, the momentum of this last attack carries him forward, and he topples slowly.

He's almost hit the ground when I swing again, intending to take his head.

I misjudge my aim, however, and my sword bites his neck, but not clean through. His head flops grotesquely against his shoulder, only half-tethered to the body, as he finally collapses on the stones.

I step over him, planning to finish the strong man who turned into my thrown knife, but find the job already done.

Iona is standing over him, panting, holding the candlestick again. Her face is white, her arm and side slick with blood from her own injury.

We stare at each other, uncomprehending, trying to fathom what's just happened.

Minutes ago, we were asleep in my bed.

Hours ago, we made love.

Last night, we raised glasses and toasted friendship on the roof.

Now we've barely won a fight for our lives.

Madra pads over, bloody strings of saliva hanging from the corners of her mouth as her tongue lolls. She's calm, even a bit pleased with herself.

In the aftermath of the violence, I realize I can hear nothing throughout the rest of the castle. No bells sounding the alarm, no running feet coming to the sound of our cries, no clash of blades. Outside the broken hinges of my door frame, the stairs down to the common room are dark and empty.

Wordlessly, I sit Iona on the side of the bed and tear strips of fabric from the sheets. These, I tie tightly around the cut on her arm, stemming the flow of blood. It's crude, but it will do until a healer can be brought.

There is a chance one of the field surgeons is on duty at the barracks, and an equal chance that one of the Chantry's spirit mages is staying in the chapel below, visiting from the Circle of Magi; if not, we'll have to send for one of the apothecaries in the outer wards.

"All right for now?" I ask.

She nods, eyes wide. "Are you?"

I'm really not sure how to answer. There is still blood in my mouth, and my shoulder is on fire where I blocked the pommel strike. My pulse is pounding in my ears, and my entire body is shaking. None of my thoughts seem to quite line up.

"You should put some clothes on," I reply, because for some reason the biggest worry I have right now is my mother finding Iona naked in my room.

Never mind her injuries, or mine. Never mind the dead men. Never mind the blood that covers most of the floor, running now in little rivers between the stones, snaking toward the stairs. Somehow, my biggest fear is embarrassing Mother.

Iona begins to pull on her dress, an effort made awkward since she seems unable to lift her injured arm. I move to help her, but she shakes her head.

"You should get dressed, too," she says.

Nodding, I cross to the weapons stand. My armor, such as it is, hangs on the wall behind. I pull on a thick shirt, then my leather vest, a belt, and finally a pair of boots. To the belt, I hook my sword and scabbard, and I tuck a knife in my boot. Last, and most comforting, I sling a full quiver over my shoulder and lift my bow. Not exactly ready for battle, but better prepared than I was earlier.

Madra, after circling my legs once, has posted herself at the top of the stairs. She is glaring down into darkness, toward the commons, but is not growling.

I'm not sure what to make of any of this.

Sound does not carry well in the keep, but someone should have heard the fight, or Iona's screams, or Madra barking. The utter silence means that something is very wrong.

There are servants in the commons throughout the night, and guards outside my parents' doors. If these assailants targeted only Iona and I – and why they would, I cannot guess – then help should be here already. But if there are more attackers in other parts of the castle, delaying our rescue, we'd have heard fighting by now, and the alarm bells would be ringing.

I turn my attention to the men we've killed, hoping they can provide some clue. I drop to one knee beside the the nearest attacker, the man I tried to decapitate. His head, half-severed, is twisted at an unnatural angle, so that even though he's lying on his stomach, I can see most of face looking up at me.

Bile rises in my mouth, and I have to fight not to retch. I've born witness to executions, and the aftermath of accidental death, and the butchery of livestock. I've seen my share of blood, but I've never spilled it myself, not this way, never in such an unexpected and personal context.

I cough once, and slowly regain control over rising nausea. Even accounting for the grotesque angle, and the expression frozen in pain and surprise, I can tell I've never seen the man before. He's not from Highever, at least not the castle.

Checking the rest of his body, I notice he was wearing a shield strapped to his back, over his sword's scabbard. It was knocked from one of its harnesses, either in the fighting or when he fell to the floor, and the shield is twisted in the remaining straps, face-down, half on and half off of his back. Its presence explains his bizarre attempt to parry my strike with his hand: he was used to carrying a shield in combat.

From this, I gather that they didn't expect a fight when they came into my room. And why should they have? Three armed men, surprising a young, sleeping noble? Why would they need anything more than swords?

I grip the edge of the shield, tilting it up, hoping to see if it carries any identifying marks.

As soon as I've lifted it enough to see the face, I almost drop it in shock.

The shield does indeed carry an insignia: the image of a brown bear, over a background of yellow and white. Dark blood is spattered on the bear's claws, but the image is unmistakable.

This is the Howe family crest.

The shock is almost physical, and I jerk upright. Nothing about this makes sense – not the violence that has invaded my room, not the silence in the rest of the castle, least of all the sigil itself.

Moving quickly, I check the other two bodies. Sure enough, they also wore shields slung on their backs, emblazoned with the brown bear.

Despite disliking Howe, I outright reject the most obvious implication. For one thing, these men were not among the small retinue that accompanied Howe on his arrival. More importantly, though, his friendship with Father is older than I am, and his loyalty has always been beyond question.

But if not Howe, what then can this mean?

Perhaps a disguise to allow the assassins to move more easily among the few servants and guards still working in the dead of night? It's not exactly a solid explanation, but it's the best I can manage.

Putting aside my questions, I move to Madra's side and look down the stairs. Below, the door to the commons rests open. The warm orange glow of a fire flickers across the small stretch of floor that's visible, but nothing else seems to be moving, and no sound echoes up the steps.

Briefly, I consider telling Iona to remain in my room. If the whole castle is under attack, however, I cannot leave her, defenseless and bleeding, while Madra and I investigate. And if the castle is not under attack, and the fight in my room has gone unnoticed by some freak accident, then there is no danger to her at all. So I beckon she should follow, and begin to descend the stairs, my sword ready.

Cautiously, I follow Madra down the stairs and through the door to the common room, Iona trailing several paces behind.

In the common room, my first impression is that nothing is out of place. The only light comes from fire burning low in the big hearth at the center of the room. It's sleepy and peaceful, just as it has been on the many late nights I've spent here, reading or playing chess with Aeron.

Then Iona inhales sharply. She touches my arm and points toward the couches on which Mother and Landra dined yesterday. Two bodies are crumpled on the thick rugs in front of the fireplace. Even in the dusky half-light, I can see wide, dark stains spread beneath them.

Beyond the dead servants, the door leading to the stairway up to Fergus' suite hangs open. Lights flicker from within, probably torches. The door ought to be shut. So should the door to the suite to Mother and Father's apartments, but I can't see it from here.

I signal Madra, and we start across the common room, towards the open door.

We've taken no more than a few steps, however, when I hear gruff voices and the sound of booted feet. Shadows play in the torchlight at the base of Fergus' stairs.

Men are coming down, and I do not think they are guards or servants.

Silently, I take Iona by the hand and we retreat to the shadows of my own stairway, Madra following obediently. Sheltered by darkness, I sheath my sword and transition to my bow, drawing and nocking an arrow, my eyes never leaving the door to Fergus' suite.

If they spot us, I should be able to kill one or two before they cross the common room. Then we can retreat up my stairs, and pick them off as they try to climb after us. I'm a good enough archer that they'll not reach my room until my quiver runs empty.

Across the common room, the men emerge from Fergus' staircase.

Like those who invaded my room, they wear armor and carry shields slung over their backs, and move with the confidence of men expecting no challenge. With a sinking sensation, I see the blades of their swords are stained red. Still more blood is flecked across the first man's arms and chest, none of it his own.

There's little doubt, then, that they've killed Oren and Oriana.

As the first man walks, I see he's tucking something that glitters in the firelight into a small leather satchel that hangs from his belt. Stolen jewelry, no doubt.

The theft enrages me. Is it not enough to murder the women and children of my family in their sleep? Must these bastards pillage our trinkets as well?

There are only three of them. My anger bests my prudence, and I step out from the shadows, my bow raised and drawn, ready to fire.

But as I do, the man with the jewelry gasps and twists sideways, an arrow that isn't mine protruding from his throat. As his body pitches to the floor, and before his comrades can react or I can adjust my aim, two more arrows streak across the commons and find their marks. All three of the men are dead before any of us know what's happened.

Bow still drawn, I step further from the door, surveying the room – and find my mother doing the same, pacing carefully out into the commons, her bow raised and string pulled tight. She appears to have dressed hastily, in clothes she usually wears when she accompanies Father hunting, and a quiver hangs on her hip. When she sees me, she relaxes slightly, pointing the tip of her arrow to the floor.

"Liam!" she calls out, walking toward me. "Darling, are you hurt?"

"Are _you_ all right?"

"Only the Maker's grace," she says. "I heard fighting outside my door. I tried to sound the alarm, but the rope's been cut between us and the bell."

"Intruders," I say. "Three of them kicked my door in. Madra woke me, and helped fight. It's nothing but luck I'm still alive. Iona took a bad cut on her arm. It's bandaged, but we need a healer."

Iona steps up beside me, clutching her arm.

Mother doesn't bat an eyelash. "Keep pressure on that, dear," she says to Iona, and it looks like she's about to check the makeshift dressing the applied to the wound.

Then, abruptly, Mother freezes. "They came for you, too?" she asks.

She looks at the men she killed – dead with arrows in their throats, at the feet of the steps that lead to Fergus' chambers. I see the understanding wash over her like a physical wave.

...

 **As we climb the steps to Fergus' suite,** Mother is sobbing already, pleading with the Maker for mercy. Any hope she held for answered prayer, however, is crushed as soon as pass the splintered door.

For me, there's only bitter confirmation. I've known what we'd find since the men emerged into the common room with blood on their swords.

A guardsman is dead in the entry room, where we said our goodbyes yesterday afternoon. It appears he was caught by surprise and run through as he leapt up from a small table: his hand grips a half drawn sword, and the table is on its side, contents strewn across the floor, pages of a letter soaked by the contents of a shattered ceramic mug.

Behind the guardsman's body, the door to Oren's room has been kicked from its hinges, the wooden crossbar splintered on the floor. Just inside the threshold, Oriana lays on her side, her arms wrapped protectively around a smaller form, her white nightdress soaked with bright red blood. I step past her, checking the room in case any of the murderers remained behind.

Mother cries out, a strangled shriek of grief and horror, and rushes forward. "No! My little Oren!"

As mother collapses to her knees beside the bodies, Madra follows me through a side door that leads to the adjoining master bedroom. Evidence of looting is everywhere: clothes, jewelry, weapons, and trinkets have been thrown from the trunks and drawers that held them, and lay scattered on the floor. Satisfied that none of the enemy remains in the suite, I direct Madra to guard the top of the stairs and return to Oren's room

There, I find Mother bowed over Oren and Oriana, her bow on the floor, her body shaking. Iona has knelt and wrapped her arm around Mother's back, and when she looks up at me, her eyes are wet.

"Poor, sweet Oren," Mother whispers, her hands stroking at Oren's pale forehead. "Poor, sweet child…"

I kneel as well, and take Iona's place at Mother's side, pulling her away from the bodies and into a hug. As I do, Iona steps gingerly around mother and child, bends down, and presses her fingers to Oriana's neck, checking for a pulse. Finding none, she brushes her fingers gently over Oriana's eyes, closing them for the last time.

"Oriana was pregnant," Mother reminds me hoarsely. "What manner of fiends slaughter the innocent?"

"Did you see their shields?" I ask, and notice Iona is now checking Oren for a pulse as well. Mother doesn't answer.

"They're carrying Howe's heraldry," I tell her.

"Howe's men?" Mother demands, her body suddenly rigid, rage galvanizing her grief. "That _bastard!_ He attacks while our troops are gone!"

"But why would he attack us?" I press. "I'm not sure–"

"He must have delayed his men on purpose," she snarls, rising abruptly, snatching up her bow. "That bastard! I'll cut his lying throat myself!"

"He's alive," Iona says softly, and I'm not sure I heard her right. Then she repeats herself, louder, disbelieving.

Immediately, Mother drops back down beside Iona and bends over her grandson.

Iona rolls Oriana's body aside, revealing more of Oren's tiny frame. I can see at least two deep wounds to Oren's stomach, and the blood that soaks his shirt around them is dark, almost black. It seems impossible that he is still among the living, and equally unlikely that he can remain so even if he is now.

"By the Maker…" Mother says reverently, her ear low across his mouth. "He still draws breathe!"

"We need to get him to a healer," Iona says. "Quickly."

I shake my head. "We don't know what's going on. If there's more of them, we can't risk carrying Oren through a fight. I'll take Madra, and find a healer. You two stay with-"

"No one is staying here," Mother interrupts.

I start to argue, but she cuts me off immediately.

"I am no Orlesian wallflower!" she snaps. "I have a bow, and I'll use it. If there are more of these bastards in the castle, you'll need all the help you can get. Besides..." She gestures helplessly at Oriana's body and at Oren's frail form. "Howe is not even taking hostages. He means to kill us all, Liam. It's no safer here than anywhere else."

Further argument will be pointless, so I nod curtly, before bending down to lift Oren.

"Have you seen your father?" she asks. "He never came to bed."

I shake my head. "Not since the feast."

Oren's body is warm in my arms, but his skin is clammy, and his clothes are soaked with blood – his own and his mother's.

"We need to find him if we can," Mother says. "If the castle is under attack, he must be warned."

As I straighten up with Oren in my arms, Iona reaches out for him.

"Let me," she says.

"But your arm..."

"I can do carry him with one arm," she says. "Besides, you'll need both your hands if it comes to another fight.

Nodding, I place Oren in the crook of her uninjured arm, and she cradles him tenderly against her shoulder.

She directs me to wrap his little arms around the back of her neck and tie them at the wrists, and then loop a belt from a nearby dresser under Oren's knees and around her waist. When I'm done, Oren is effectively tied to her, so she needs only the one arm to support him easily.

Behind us, Mother has been praying over Oriana's body. "Now let us go," she says, rising. "I cannot stand to be here any longer."

...

 **I take the lead as we descend the winding stairway from the commons,** my sword held ready. Madra is at my knee, nose forward and teeth bared. Behind us, Mother has a knife tucked into her belt, and carries her bow ready. Iona follows several paces behind with Oren.

We've decided to go directly to the great hall. As yet, no alarm has been raised, so any guards left in the castle should be at their posts in the hall and on courtyard landing. It's also where Father is most likely to be, whether he knows of the intruders or not.

"Six came for us," Mother is telling me, as we try to parse out the details of the attack.

"You must have had guards on duty?" I ask.

"Two men," Mother confirms. "They bought me time to bar the door, and killed four of the attackers before they fell."  
"And you killed the other two yourself?" I ask, more than a little incredulous.

"They did not expect me," Mother says, which I suppose is quite the understatement.

If there is any justice, in whatever afterlife they find, as they suffer whatever punishment the universe can concoct, the bastards will know they were killed not just by a woman, but by a grandmother. No dignity in death for men who would put swords to women and children.

...

 **Halfway down to the great hall** , we are met by a squad of guardsmen. They are running up the steps, blades drawn and shields up. They are as startled to see us as we are them, and the guard in the lead, a sergeant, lunges forward to bat my sword away with his shield, then pins me against the wall.

As his sword goes to my throat, mother screams for him to hold, calling him by name, and his eyes widen.

"My lord!" he exclaims, stepping back, lowering his weapon. "A thousand apologies, I – I didn't recognize you!"

"What's going on, sergeant?" Mother demands.

"There are intruders throughout the castle, milady, carrying Arl Howe's colors. We fought them off in the great hall, but we found the ropes for the alarm bells were already cut and feared the worst. You – you look as though you have seen fighting, my lord?" he asks, staring at me with an expression akin to awe.

It is uncommon, I suppose, to see a member of the nobility bearing weapons and covered in blood.

Behind me, Iona shifts into view, and the sergeant's face tightens. "Is – does the child still live?"

I nod, but I don't have time for further explanation. "Has the courtyard fallen?" I ask.

"They were still fighting there when Ser Gilmore sent us to find you," he says, and I feel a wash of relief to know Aeron is still alive. "He was preparing the men for a counterattack."

"And my husband?" Mother asks.

"The Teyrn was with Ser Gilmore, my lady."

"Then we've no time to lose," Mother says. "If the castle can be saved, we must find a healer, and if it cannot, we must find the Teyrn and get Oren out the servant's exit. You will escort us, sergeant?"

"Of course, my lady." Behind him, the guards are already moving back down the stairs with grim purpose.

...

 **I know something is wrong in the hall before I can even see the door.** From the floor above, cries and the clash of arms echo up the stairs. Moments later, I hear the guards at the front of our escort bellow battle cries, and the whole squad rushes forward. I follow, chasing after the sergeant, and then stumble, tripping down the last of the stairs and almost falling across the threshold into the great hall.

Around me, violence reigns. Dozens of men stumble and strike and fall in dim light cast by flickering torches on the walls. Benches have been tipped over, chairs are broken into pieces, and one of the banquet tables is on its side, wedged against the gates to the courtyard landing, a makeshift barricade to deny anyone entry.

Too many of the dead scattered across the hall are my family's guardsmen. Some seem to have been caught unawares, weapons untouched, while others clearly fought to the death, their bodies covered with cuts, their weapons still clutched in their lifeless hands.

The fighting is concentrated by the big doors to the landing, and I think I can see Aeron's fiery hair and broad frame moving among the other guards. They have shoved a number of benches and smaller tables together, and fight between this blockade and the doors, forcing the attackers to either climb across the jumble of furniture or charge them directly. Outnumbered as they are, this tactic has prevented the guards from being completely overwhelmed, but they are still losing ground, and enemy archers pick at their flanks. Despite the ferocity of their defense, Aeron and the guards cannot hold out much longer on their own.

We've arrived barely in time, shifting the balance of the fight in more ways than one. The numbers are close to even now, but more importantly, we've emerged behind the enemy. Wasting no time, the sergeant and his men charge the enemy archers, nearby and unprotected. As they do, I raise my bow and signal Madra in the same motion, freeing her to attack the intruders as she wills.

Some of the enemy archers recognize the danger and call out to the swordsmen, but all of them are too late. Most of the archers are cut down before they can even turn, and the swordsmen are caught between the sergeant's men and Aeron's. I pick one off with an arrow, then another.

At the fringe of the fighting, Madra launches herself through the air at one of the archers, who is trying to escape by jumping across benches, and I could swear she's smiling, probably ecstatic to have found a second melee in one night. She catches the man's arm and brings him to the ground with her, and I hear his scream cut short.

Across the hall, Aeron is running toward me from the doors, sword overhead, shield high. He's yelling something to us, but I can't make out the words. He doesn't look relieved in the least – if anything, he looks panicked.

As I search for another target, I see half the intruders are dead already, the rest retreating to the far wall, pursued by the sergeant and his men. I pick off a straggling swordsman, and see Mother is drawing her bow as well, and Madra is harrying another of the enemy. The battle appears won, and I see nothing that would justify Aeron's desperation.

No sooner does this thought cross my mind than an enormous flash of blue light fills the room, followed almost instantly by an incredible crash. Acrid mist fills the air, blocking all sight, like a mixture of thick wood smoke and putrid sulfur. Power ripples outward from the far side of the room, from the direction in which the enemy retreated, and I feel a sudden, percussive pressure in my chest.

Before I can even begin to process what is happening, tentacles of bright blue lash through the thick fog, wrapping the sergeant and another guardsman. Their shouts of surprise are cut short and turn to screams as the ropes of energy appears to tighten, and then both men's bodies flare with unnatural luminescence as the strands of energy sever each at the waist, clean through.

There's no blood, but as the tentacles meet in the middle of the guards' bodies, the light intensifies and begins to pulse, the energy seeming to feed on the men's bodies, or perhaps on itself. Then blue light explodes outward, brighter than before, and I'm thrown from my feet as chunks of armor and burnt meat rain down around me. A chair flies over my head, and I see a bench that was near the sergeant skitter past, barely holding together as it skips across the stone floor.

Behind me, Mother screams in pain, and I twist on the ground to look. The bench is just behind her, and clearly struck her as it passed. She's leaning against a wall, clutching it for support, her right leg limp beneath her, her bow snapped in two.

"Mage!" Aeron is yelling through the smoke. "They have a mage!"

The fog lifts, and I see him now: a tall, sallow man, dressed as the others, but carrying a long, wrought iron staff with a turquoise orb is set into the top. The turquoise shines brightly, illuminating every corner of the hall, casting dark shadows as the remaining swordsmen form a protective half-circle around the spellcaster.

The remainder of the guards are following Aeron, preparing for a final charge against the intruders.

As I push myself back to my feet, the mage spins the staff overhead with one hand, while stretching the other hand out toward us, fingers twitching in a strange pattern. Energy crackles from the orb, and he clenches his free hand briefly. Then he grasps the staff with both hands, lunges one step forward, and thrusts the orb directly at Aeron.

Lightning flashes out. Real lightening: white hot, jagged bolts crackling with electricity, too bright to look at.

Aeron has already thrown himself forward, landing with his shoulder on his shield and rolling to continue the momentum. The bolts strike the floor where he stood, and fragments of stone fill the air. No one is injured, but several of the guardsmen who were following Aeron freeze in place, their eyes wide.

As he comes to his feet, however, Aeron does not slow his advance. Instead, he does the opposite, beginning to run and bellowing a challenge. His example is enough to jolt the others back into action, and they charge after him, crashing into the ring of swordsmen.

I jump on a nearby table, hoping for a cleaner shot, and sight down the length of my arrow at the mage's throat, drawing the string back as far as I can. No obstructions between us.

One breath in – hold – loose the arrow – release the breath.

The arrow flies true, but inches from the mage's neck, it flickers and then simply disappears.

The mage was looking in another direction, but he seems to sense what's happened and turns, and from across the hall, our eyes lock. There's no malice in his expression, only focus and determination. His jaw is clenched tight with effort, and his forehead is beaded with sweat.

Behind the mage, one of our guardsmen gets close enough to strike what ought to be a killing blow. Instead of piercing the mage's chest, however, the sword bounces sideways, deflected just inches from its target by a translucent outline that flickers to life around the mage's body, like a suit of armor made from nothing but light. There is a flash, and the phantom armor disappears, and the guard has fallen to his knees, his sword arm hanging limp, his face upturned, staring uncomprehending at the mage until a nearby swordsman cuts him down.

In frustration, I loose another arrow, and then another, and each one simply disappears, consumed by whatever magic protects the mage. There's no point in wasting any more arrows, at least not until the mage's energy is expended.

Desperate for another way to end the threat, I whistle for Madra's attention and then point with an outstretched arm at the mage. Although I can't see her in the melee, Madra barks once in assent, loud and happy.

I hope I'm not sending her to her death.

I jump down from the table and sidestep toward Mother, who is still leaning against the wall, tears of pain streaking her face. Iona is beside her, her back to the melee, shielding Oren with her body. None of them are in any condition to flee or to fight.

Across the hall, one of the enemy swordsmen staggers out from the mass of hacking, slashing bodies that surround the mage. I fell him with an arrow, and behind him I see that most of his companions are dead or dying.

Only the mage remains on his feet, slashing his staff back and forth, trying to ward away the guards who now surround him. He is drenched with sweat, his eyes closed in concentration as he's slowly backed against the wall, and still he fights. Two of our guardsmen are dead, their bodies burning at his feet, and Aeron and the other guards do not relent, probing for weakness, using their shields to block flashes of magic that seem feeble compared to the mage's earlier display of power. Between their legs, I see Madra stagger away, dazed and tripping on her own feet, but still alive, and I notice an enormous gash on the mage's leg, courtesy of Madra's teeth.

Another wave of magic rocks hall, but this time no light flashes out, and the the wind rushes inward toward the mage, more like an implosion than the earlier blast. The magical barrier that protected the mage's body flickers and then disappears with a crackle not unlike crumpling parchment.

A half dozen swords rise and fall as one.

Blood arcs up, and the mage falls noiselessly to the ground, his staff rolling away across the scorched floor.

...

 **Silence fills the great hall,** then slowly settles as softer noises replace the din of combat. I can hear men groaning in pain and others struggling to catch their breath, and the scrape of swords being wiped clean of blood, and muttered curses as the guards check fallen friends for signs of life.

"Liam!" Aeron exclaims, pacing toward me. "Your Ladyship! Thank the Maker! I was certain some of Howe's men had gotten through!"

"They did," I reply. "Twelve of them, I think. They killed Oriana, and the guards and servants, and left Oren for dead. We killed the rest. Dumb luck, mostly."

"Oren?" he asks.

"Wounded, but still alive."

"Godless motherfuckers," he spits, before noticing my Mother is limping. "My lady!" he exclaims, "You're injured too!"

"I fear my leg is broken," she says, her voice strained. "What happened here?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I was at the barracks, saying goodbye to some of the boys. Everything was quiet, and then there was fighting everywhere. By the time we got outside, half the guards on duty were dead. We saw the Teyrn fighting on the stairs, and fought our way to him, and -"

"Where is he now?" Mother interrupts desperately.

"At the gatehouse, I think."

"He still lives, then?"

"When last I saw him, he was uninjured, my lady. We retook the great hall easily, and he sent a squad to check on you. He left me half the guards to secure the keep, and took the rest along the battlements, to reinforce the gates."

"Are they attacking the gates, too, then?" I ask.

"Yes. By the time we reached him on the steps, most of the fighting in the courtyard had moved to the gatehouse. I haven't been back outside since, but we have to pray it hasn't fallen yet."

"This is no mere assassination," Mother says grimly.

Aeron shakes his head. "Howe means to take the castle, I think."

"Are you certain it's Howe?" I ask.

"The Teyrn thought so," Aeron says, "Although he didn't have time to explain. All the attackers wear Amaranthine's sigil. We saw fires in the city, and heard fighting in the outer ward, as well."

"Is the keep secure, at least?" Mother asks.

"I think so," Aeron replies. "As soon as the Teyrn left, I took men to barricade the kitchen doors, but we'd barely left the hall when we heard more fighting. The goddamn mage and his men must have been inside already, coming up the other stairs while we were on our way down. They were trying to reopen the courtyard doors when we got back. It was all we could do to hold the doors, and we couldn't seem to touch the mage."

He shakes his head, seeming almost dazed. "You saw the rest," he says, and waves at the demolished great hall. Bodies are everywhere. Half the furniture is destroyed. Blood and soot stain the walls and floors. Less than a dozen guards are still upright.

"Now what?" I ask.

"We need to find the Teyrn," Aeron says. "If he still holds the gates, he'll know what to do next."

"Liam," Mother says softly, touching my arm briefly.

Even that simple gesture almost takes her off balance, and I catch her elbow to help her stay upright.

"Liam," she repeats. "Listen, darling. We haven't much time. If you can't get to your father, you _must_ get out here alive."

"Mother–"

"Listen! Without you and Fergus, the entire Cousland line could die here, today. If Howe is responsible, he may have laid a trap for Fergus, as well. If they've taken the gate, you'll have to use the servant's stairs to escape. Do you understand me?"

"It won't come to that," I tell her. "We'll find Father and come back for you and Oren."

"You have to promise me," she insists.

"I'll not leave without all of you!"

Instead of answering, she looks past me to Aeron. "Promise me. Promise me you'll get him out if you have to."

Aeron bows his head. "My lady."

...

 **Outside, the courtyard is almost unrecognizable.** The steps are littered with bodies, and more corpses are scattered on the grass in front of the chapel. Many of the dead are guards or armored intruders, but others are dressed as servants, or wear the distinctive robes of Chantry brothers and sisters.

Flames rise from the library, and from the stables too, and I can hear the terrified screams of horses trapped in the blaze. A handful of servants and guards run to and from the well with buckets of water, and others are battling the smoke and heat to drag panicked animals free of the inferno, but it's clear that both buildings are doomed, along with most of the animals within.

The gates remain closed, and above, on the gatehouse parapets and nearby ramparts, I can see guardsmen silhouetted by an orange glow rising outside the walls. Plumes of smoke blot out the stars, and shouts and crashes rise in the distance, likely from the outer wards.

Aeron and I lead a half dozen surviving guards from the hall across the courtyard, giving wide berth to the library, now fully engulfed. Outside its doors, several women in silk nightclothes are sprawled, skewered by arrows. Among them, still wearing an enormous purple gown, is Lady Landra. My first thought on seeing these bodies is a selfish one – I am simply grateful Iona is not among them. She remains with Oren and Mother in the great hall, along with a few of the guards.

Glancing again at Landra, I wonder if Ser Jory is also among the dead. I don't see his body, and didn't see him at the feast. Perhaps he is still with the Duncan and the other Wardens.

And what, I wonder, has become of the Wardens? Will they fight or flee? Would Howe attack the Grey Wardens? It seems unthinkable, but I suppose he must: their testimony would condemn him before the king if they escaped. If he really is behind tonight's carnage, then it is hardly the only unthinkable act he has set in motion.

...

" **Andraste be praised,"** Father exclaims when we find him at the gatehouse, and wraps me in a brief, crushing hug. "Your Mother?"

"Hurt, but alive," I answer.

Aeron and I explain the situation in the great hall as quickly as we can.

"Poor Fergus," Father murmurs. Otherwise, however, he gives no response. He wears the Cousland sword across his back, still sheathed, and carries another in his hand, its edge darkened with blood. He is flanked by guardsmen, and Brother Aldous stands nearby as well.

I'm surprised to see the brother is armed, his face and robe spattered with someone else's blood, his expression hard. I know he was not always a Chantry brother, but I never once considered he might know how to fight.

"The news is no better here," Father says, once we finish our account. Most of the archers on the walls above survived the initial attack, he says, but the rest of the guards' ranks have been decimated. Between the survivors with Father, the reinforcements we brought from the hall, and the handful of militia and constables who have retreated from the outer wards, the gate's defenders number less than two score.

Worse, one of the constables brings reports of battering rams and ladders being brought through the city. Another man, a member of the militia, is the sole survivor from the outer ward's western gate, which he says fell within minutes to a horde of Amaranthine soldiers, supported by at least three mages.

"Apostates?" Father asks, looking to Aldous.

The Brother shrugs. "Without seeing them myself, I cannot say, my lord. But...it seems unlikely that Howe could find so many apostates willing to serve. If we know of four already, we must assume there are more."

"If not apostates, what then? They couldn't be from the Circle of Magi?" Father asks, and shakes his head. "The Chantry would never condone Howe's treachery!"

"I cannot begin to guess," Aldous replies. "It's possible Howe tricked someone in the Chantry or the Circle, or bought them. It's also possible he found a coven of apostates the templars missed. In either case, the implications are troubling."

"Troubling?" Aeron demands, incredulous. "It's a hell of a lot worse than troubling! We could hold the gate for days against soldiers, and maybe against battering rams, too. The ladders are a problem, but we can retreat to the keep if we have to. Mages, though?" He throws his arms out helplessly. "It took all of us, everything we had, to bring down the one in the hall, and even then, he killed how many of us? And that was just _one_!"

"I know," Father says. "We can't fight them head on. So…options?" he asks, looking between me, Aldous, and Aeron.

"The army can't have gotten far," I suggest. "Fergus might see the smoke, bring them back? We could hold out that long, right?"

Father shakes his head. "If they marched until dark, they'll have gone twenty miles, at least. I doubt they'd see the smoke until morning, and if they did, who knows what your brother would make of it."

"It'd be too late, anyway," Aeron says grimly. "If they have mages, we'll be lucky to last to sunrise, let alone until they can march back."

Aldous nods agreement. "Trained battle mages from the Circle can break a castle's defenses in hours," he says. "And if the mages are apostates, I cannot guess what forbidden arts they may draw upon. Regardless, without templars, or mages of our own, we have no effective defense."

"We can't just let Howe win!" I exclaim.

Whatever treachery is at work, I cannot conceive that we would bow and surrender our home. Not to the man who ordered Oriana killed, who put Oren to the sword. This is my home – my family. Howe cannot have any of it!

Angry tears well in my eyes. "There must be a way!" I insist, blinking them away.

Father regards me solemnly for a moment before shaking his head. "Ser Gilmore and Brother Aldous are correct," he says quietly. "We cannot hope to win the day. The only victory is vengeance, and for that, we must ensure our line survives. You and Oren must escape at all costs, and warn Fergus if you can."

I begin to protest, but Aeron puts a firm hand on my arm. "He's right, Liam. Your mother's right, too. You've got to survive." He turns to Father, hand still on my arm. "And you too, My Lord," he adds.

Father means to remain behind at the gates, I realize, to buy time for me and Mother and Oren.

Beyond, in the outer ward, the sound of fighting has drawn nearer. Above the clash of metal, above the battle cries and the screams, I hear explosions, as well, intermittent, crackling with strange energy. I recognize the sound of magic from the hall.

"You must survive, My Lord," Aeron insists, eyes locked on Father. Between them, a contest of wills is being fought. "You must!"

At last, Father looks away. "Very well, Ser Gilmore."

Aeron nods curtly, but I can see how relieved he is. "With your permission, my lord," he says, "I'll keep most of the guards here with me. You and Liam take a few men, get the Teyrna and Lord Oren, and head for the stairs. If Howe's army came from the west, they probably took the western gate and made straight for the castle. I doubt he expected his assassins to fail, so if we're lucky, he won't expect an escape, and he won't move into the rest of the city until he has the keep."

"It's a sound plan," Father says solemnly. "I thank you, Ser Gilmore."

"No!" I shout, shaking Aeron's arm from my shoulder, tears streaming down my face now. "We won't leave you to die for us! _I_ won't!"

Aeron turns me toward him and grabs me again, with both hands this time, holding my shoulders so tightly he's almost shaking me.

"Shut up and listen to me," he hisses, his face inches from mine. "You need to survive. For your family, and for Oren, and for Iona. For your people!"

Then his face softens into a grim smirk.

"Besides," he says, "who said anything about dying, for you or for anyone? I'll hold the gates long enough for you to escape. Then we'll hole up in the keep. Even against mages, we should be able to hold out for a few days at least. You find Fergus, and you come back, and you save my ass, you hear?"

It's a lie – at best, a vain hope – but I nod through my tears.

"Stay alive," I tell him. I want to say so much more, but there's no time – and, really, nothing we haven't already said, between discussing the Wardens and our drunken toasts on the keep's roof. "Stay alive."

He squeezes my shoulders even harder, then shoves me away. "Maker watch over us all," he says, and turns away, sprinting toward the gates, already calling out orders to the remaining guards.


	9. In Your Arms

**CHAPTER SEVEN:** In Your Arms...

 **As I sprint up the steps to the courtyard landing,** the assault on the gatehouse begins behind me, a cacophony of death and magic that chases at my heels, overwhelming me with guilt at abandoning Aeron.

Below me, on the grass, Father leads six guards toward a side door to the Kitchen Proper. They plan to barricade the doors and clear the path through the basements, while I get Mother, Iona, and Oren from the great hall.

At the top of the stairs, gasping for breath, I direct a handful of guards to reinforce Aeron at the gatehouse. They respond immediately, running back in the direction from which I've come. They're almost certainly going to their deaths, something they must know, and yet they offer no complaint, display no hesitation. I've little time to ponder their sacrifice, however, as I pull open the doors to the great hall.

Inside, a guard is helping mother lash together a crutch they've improvised from the remains of her bow and the mage's iron staff.

Nearby, another guard kneels with Iona, tending to Oren, who has been laid on his back, face up. Madra is curled around his tiny shoulders, licking his forehead with affection and concern. The guard is listening intently to Iona, nodding and pressing hard with both hands, just above Oren's wounds. Something smokes in Iona's fingers, and she presses it into one of the deep gashes on Oren's stomach.

As I walk closer, I see she's holding a broken piece of metal, one end of which has been heated in the embers of the big fireplace. She has twisted cloth, torn from her dress, around the other end of the metal, to protect her hand as she presses the hot metal against Oren's wound. His little body spasms once, twice, then goes still.

The guard removes his hands and bends over Oren's mouth. He's still for a moment, then exhales visibly in relief and nods to Iona, who sits back on her heels and drops the smoldering cloth to the floor. I see now that the other wound is burnt over as well, cauterized by Iona's makeshift torch.

She takes my hand and I pull her to her feet.

"How did you...?"

"Hahren Valendrian taught me," she says tiredly. "I'm not very good yet. If we can get him to the Alienage, someone there might be able to do more."

I nod, crouching and stroking the back of Oren's head, wet from sweat and blood and Madra's kisses.

"We're taking the servant's exit," I tell Iona. "We can get to the Alienage from there. Will you be able to make it down the stairs?"

"I don't need my arm to walk," she says, determined. "Your mother, though..."

"I'll help her." We stand, and I kiss her forehead before turning to Mother. "Can you walk?"

"Of course," Mother snaps, affronted, but her face is tight with pain.

"Help her," I tell the guard who assembled the crutch.

Two others, I instruct to take the lead as we climb down the stairs to the kitchen. They draw their swords and move to the staircase door, waiting while their comrade helps Mother onto the crutch over her protests.

I send the remainder of the guards to the front gate. Like the men on the landing, they can surely guess that they're being asked to buy us time with their lives. And yet, like the men on the landing, they do not hesitate. I wish I had words to give my thanks, but there's a thick lump in my throat, and already they are running toward the doors.

...

 **Although we only have to descend a few floors, it's slow going.** Despite her bluster to the contrary, Mother can barely walk, even with the crutch and the support of the guard. Iona has again tied herself to Oren, and although she does not complain, she is beginning to look pale, the combination of her injury and Oren's weight beginning to take its toll.

Every step, every corner, my nerves are at the edge of breaking. I want to believe there are no more enemies within the castle, just as I want to believe that Aeron can hold the gates long enough for me to see my loved ones to safety, but too much has already gone wrong tonight.

We're nearly to the bottom of the last flight of stairs, the door to the Kitchen Proper in view, when my fears are proved out. Soldiers carrying Amaranthine shields spill from the kitchens into the hallway at the bottom of the stairs,

"It's them!" the first of the soldiers calls back into the kitchens, before rushing up at us.

The two guards at the front of our group leap down the stairs, killing the soldier before he can even raise his shield in defense, and then fall upon his comrades with ferocious intensity, forcing the intruders back.

I draw my bow, but nearly lose my footing as Madra bursts past me, followed closely by the third guard, the man who was supporting Mother. Behind me, I hear her gasp, and wonder if she's fallen, but I can't spare a glance. Steadying myself, I draw and fire arrows as quickly as I can, felling two soldiers as they exit the kitchen. Those who follow recognize the threat and raise their shields, blocking my next shots.

Their shields are no help against Madra, however. As the guards and soldiers clash, she twists past to worry the intruders from behind, tearing savagely at exposed calves and ankles, ripping free whole chunks of flesh, her teeth shredding trousers and boots. The soldiers scream as their legs go out from under them, and as they fall they are cut down by the guards, and in the chaos, the other soldiers lower their shields to ward away my Mabari, and in so doing open themselves to my arrows.

Oh so briefly, the fight becomes a massacre, and nearly a dozen of the Amaranthine soldiers die in a matter of seconds. The few who remain hesitate at entrance to the kitchens, shields up. The three guardsman rush forward, looking to finish the fight, and are outpaced only by Madra, whose coat, normally sleek and clean, is now slick with blood and matted with gore.

Then the door to the kitchen is darkened, and an enormous man steps into the hall, wielding with two hands a broadsword that's almost as long as I am tall. I recognize him immediately: Ser Randolph, Arl Howe's steward. He shoves past his men with a roar, and in a single sweep of the blade beheads one guardsman and cripples the other.

Madra lunges for Ser Randolph's throat but he raises his knee and catches her chest, knocking her aside. Before she can recover, he delivers a powerful kick to her ribs, sending her crashing against a wall.

She slides down, landing near the remaining soldiers; one raises his sword to finish her, but dies with my arrow in his chest.

My next shot is aimed at Ser Randolph's unprotected throat, but he sees it coming and shifts his weight, taking the projectile in his shoulder. Its force is blunted by armor, but the arrowhead still sinks into his flesh, and I expect at least a flinch. Instead, he merely snaps the shaft against the staircase wall and continues forward.

I fire again, and this time Ser Randolph deflects the next arrow with his sword, then twists the blade back to catch a strike from the last of our guardsmen. He parries with such force that the guard's sword clatters away.

Disarmed, the guard yells "For Highever!" and draws a dagger, but before he can lunge, Randolph cracks him in the forehead with the butt of the broadsword. There's a sickening crunch, and the man falls to the stairs, dead instantly.

Near the kitchen door, the last of the Amaranthine soldiers dies as well, having needed two arrows to be successfully put down.

Now Ser Randolph is the only attacker left, and I the only defender.

As he paces toward the bottom step, I spare a glance behind me. Mother is trying to find a weapon, while Iona tries to cradle Oren and tug Mother back up the stairs.

Ser Randolph advances slowly, his broadsword canted forward so it points up the stairs, directly to the center of my chest. There's no chance of retreat, and little chance of rescue, and I'm hopelessly outmatched. I've seen how Ser Randolph moves. If he gets close enough, one flick of his wrists and I'll lose a limb, or my head, or be split open, and there's no room to try to dodge such a strike, and there's nothing with which to parry, even if I had the strength. My only hope is to fell him with an arrow, and I have one nocked, drawn back to my ear, trained on his throat, but if I loose the string at the wrong moment, he'll bat the arrow aside and cleave me in half before I can duck or draw another arrow.

My helplessness before Ser Randolph, and even more so in the face of Howe's treachery, feels absolute, overwhelming. My life, everything and everyone I love, it feels as though we are being batted about as playthings, subjected to the violent whims of faithless men. All my rage is ineffectual, the fury of a child's wild tantrum, pitiful, protesting an incomprehensible world that's utterly indifferent to my prior understanding.

"I was told you were an honorable man!" I call out, nearly choking on my anger. It's meant to be an accusation, but I fear it comes out more like a whining plea.

Ser Randolph pauses his ascent and looks me full in the face, his sword still poised to block or lunge. He raises his eyebrows expectantly, waiting, apparently, to see if I have more to say before I die.

"Would you slaughter women and children?" I demand. "You are a knight! A bann! There's no honor in this!"

"Indeed there is not," he answers gravely, when it's obvious I have no more accusations to throw. "But our country has fought too long, and too hard, for our freedom. Your father fought with us, once. He did what needed to be done, and I still do the same. This brings me no pleasure, young Cousland, but if more blood must be sacrificed, even innocent blood, to preserve Ferelden, then I do not hesitate."

Nothing he's said makes sense to me.

"Fuck you," I spit, surprising myself.

Ser Randolph inclines his head slightly, unperturbed. "You've fought well, young Ser," he says. "Maker take you to His side."

Then he begins his advance again.

I have no chance against this man. Luck has graced me already tonight, more than anyone could hope for, and even if there is still more luck to be had, it could not possibly be enough to outweigh Ser Randolph's size, and speed, and blade, and skill.

As he takes the steps one at a time, I decide to wait until I see him tense for a final attack before I loose my arrow. Perhaps it will find its mark as he brings the broadsword down, and carry him after me into death.

The next moments play out exactly as I envision. When he has closed within a few steps, I see Randolph's hips shift almost imperceptibly, forewarning an attack. As the point of the broadsword drifts sideways, I loose the arrow.

So fast my eyes can barely track the movement, Ser Randolph twists again, but instead of taking my head off at the shoulders, he knocks the arrow aside mid-flight, striking its head with his sword's cross-guard.

Although I have no weapon in hand beside my bow, his pivot has left an opening, his longsword angled slightly away, its tip scraping the wall of the stairwell. Unthinking, acting on a madman's instinct, I lunge, hoping to tackle him down the stairs. If nothing else, maybe we'll both break our necks on the way down.

But he's so fast, and he twists again, flattening his back against the wall, and as I sail past, now in free fall, his blade scrapes my left arm, shaving off a long sliver of flesh from wrist to elbow. At the same time, he jerks one armored knee up into my path, connecting solidly with the side of my head, and my body spasms in midair.

I crash to the hard stone at the bottom of the steps, near where Madra lays motionless. Desperately, I kick at her side, hoping to wake her if she's still alive, hoping she can save me, or at least my family.

Madra shifts, whines, tries to raise her head, but drops it again. She still lives, and there's some consolation in that, but she'll need a few more moments to get to her feet, and those are moments I don't have.

Ignoring the fiery pain in my arm, I force myself to my feet, choking back the vertigo and nausea that pulse from my throbbing head. I unsheathe my sword and draw my knife, and try to run up the stairs.

My legs won't cooperate. All I can manage is an unsteady hobble, barely better than a crawl, balancing against the wall with my injured arm just to stay upright.

Above me, I watch helplessly as Ser Randolph raises his longsword over Iona.

Seeing the blow coming, she twists away, shielding Oren with her body.

I scream in rage and horror as the sword falls.

Her blood sprays across the stone, a long arc, and her body shudders once and goes still.

I try to push my feet faster, and instead fall to my knees.

Behind me, Madra growls.

Above me, Mother curses. She's further up the stairs, no doubt dragged there by Iona, trying now to draw the knife from her belt.

Ser Randolph advances, stepping over Iona's body, raising his sword again.

Madra passes me, her teeth bare, her feet pumping up the steps.

Above me, impossibly, Iona's hand moves. Slow, weak, sluiced with blood, it reaches out, and her fingers close around Ser Randolph's ankle.

He stumbles, his sword scraping harmlessly against the wall. Before he's even regained his balance, he's lashing out with his foot, kicking Iona's hand free.

Just as he does, Madra clamps her jaw onto his leg, just above his heel, her teeth sinking deep into the tendons of his hamstring. Ser Randolph's back arches, and he pitches forward onto one knee, but he does not release the grip on his sword.

I'm only a few feet away now.

Just a few more steps to go.

Passing Iona's body, now motionless.

Almost in reach.

With a yelp, Madra releases her grip as Ser Randolph kicks hard, slamming her against the wall. But no sooner is his ankle free than she lunges again, springing up beneath a wide backhanded swing of his sword. She buries her teeth in the flesh below his armpit, exposed by joints in his armor. He roars in pain and finally drops his broadsword as he twists, trying to grab hold of Madra.

Finally, I'm within reach.

I lash out with my short sword, aiming for his neck, but the strength in my arm fails, and Ser Randolph spins around, knocking aside the diminished blow with his armored gauntlet. As he continues to twist toward me, one hand flashes out and his fingers close around my neck.

His hand is gigantic, its span almost wider than my head, and his grip is stronger than I'd have thought possible. There's no slow loss of oxygen: one instant I can breathe, the next I cannot inhale, or swallow, or even think.

With his other hand, Ser Randolph catches my sword arm as I try to draw it back for another strike. Effortlessly, he wrenches the blade from my grasp and throws it down the stairs.

I try to strike with my dagger, and its tip bites into the arm he's using to strangle me. He doesn't even flinch. I strike again, trying to cut his throat, but his arms are too long, and I can barely reach his shoulders, let alone his neck.

Even if I could, my arms have gone numb. It's a struggle just to hold onto the knife, let alone raise it.

My vision begins to collapse inward, darkness clouding everything but Ser Randolph's face, and the knife clatters on the stone steps.

"I'm sorry, lad," he says.

Then, as suddenly as my breath was cut off, his fingers release me and I collapse forward, falling against Ser Randolph's breastplate.

Warm liquid splashes down onto me, and as I tumble sideways I catch a glimpse of Randolph's face, his eyes wide, his mouth working silently. A knife is buried to the hilt in one side of his neck, its point protruding from the hollow of his throat. Bright red blood pulses from both wounds, and gurgles up from his mouth in a pink foam.

Then he collapses, his body rolling over mine and down the steps below.

Jostled by Randolph's fall, my head strikes a stone step, and the world spins away into blackness.

...

 **Madra's tongue is rough on my face.** Mother is saying my name, over and over.

"Liam! Get up, Liam! Get up!"

My eyes flutter open and I pull myself up until I'm half-seated on a step.

"Thank the Maker," Mother says, and she keeps talking, but I hear no more.

Several steps below me, Iona is facedown, her back opened from shoulder to waist. Her blood is spattered across the walls and steps, her blond hair stained dark.

Beneath her body, untouched by Randolph's blade, Oren stirs.

Sobbing completely uncontrollably, blinded by a mixture of tears and blood, I slide down the steps until I am beside Iona. My mind is on fire, thoughts crashing against each other.

She grabbed Randolph. She saved Mother's life. She took the blow for Oren, and thanks to her, he still lives.

All this is true. She must be alive, too. She must.

I pull Iona against my chest, my arms around her back, and I can feel the long, deep cut beneath my fingers, and find I am half right.

Her eyes are dim already, and tears have streaked the dirt and dried blood on her cheeks. One side of her body is shaking uncontrollably, and the other is limp in my arms, and her breath rasps in her throat.

"Liam..." she murmurs, and her gaze slowly focuses on my face.

"No, no, no." I don't even mean to say the words, but they spill from my lips uncontrollably. "No, no. No. Don't go..."

"...in your arms," she mutters, without context, and her eyes roll back.

"Don't go!"

"Like you did last night..." she says, her voice trailing into nothing.

And then she exhales one long, last breath, and her body spasms once and then relaxes.

And just like that, she's gone.


	10. The Fall of House Cousland

**CHAPTER EIGHT:** The Fall of House Cousland

 **Supporting Mother with one arm as she hobbles beside me,** holding Oren in the other, I limp behind Madra into the Kitchen Proper.

Like the stairway behind us, and the great hall above, Nan's beloved kitchen is almost unrecognizable, every aspect of its appearance distorted by the night's violence into a nightmare parody. Smoke billows from untended ovens and scorched pots, filling the air with a thick haze and the smell of charred food. Servants, most of whom would have arrived shortly after midnight for the early shift, are sprawled between tables and counters, throats cut.

There are perhaps a half dozen guardsmen among dead as well, fallen alongside an equal number of the intruders. The combatants' bodies are in places tangled together, limbs and weapons intertwined with the men they killed or were killed by. Most of the fighting seems to have taken place after the servants were murdered, and been concentrated a few paces from the side entrance. Judging by gaping wounds on a few of the guardsmen, it's obvious Ser Randolph and his broadsword contribute to the melee.

I wonder if he'd been down here all along, orchestrating the other attacks. As we stagger past the carnage, I recognize one of the guards' lifeless faces. He was among the men who followed Father to secure the kitchen. As soon as I see him, I feel a spike of panic and look for Father among the dead, but the panic is not as acute as I know it ought to be.

If Father is truly dead, I know the grief will be crippling, but I am already crippled by grief.

The truth is, I've next to nothing left to give, and little left to feel.

If it were not for Mother and Oren, I don't know that I would take another step. Whether I'd sink to my knees here in the kitchen and wait, or return to the stairs and cradle Iona's body until more assassins found me, or return to the gates and seek an honorable death beside Aeron, I've no idea. But any of those ends seem more purposeful than whatever awaits down the basement steps.

But Mother is leaning on me, and Oren is in my arms, and those facts are the only ones that can be permitted to matter.

Ahead of us, I hear something crash to the floor, followed by hoarse voices and footsteps. Shapes move through the hazy darkness, drawing nearer, and I see they belong to armed men. They're not guardsmen, but neither do they look like Howe's soldiers.

Whoever they are, I have no strength left with which to fight, and no weapons left to wield. Madra growls, and I stop moving. In my arms, Oren is still blessedly asleep, but at my side, I feel Mother straighten. She'd fight if she could, I know.

Then one of the shapes calls my name, in a familiar voice, and Madra's growl ceases.

"Liam!" the voice calls again. "Lady Cousland!"

Relief floods over me. I stagger forward, and strong hands reach out to catch me, hold me up, take Oren from me and support Mother as well.

From the edges of my vision, empty darkness closes in again, and for a few seconds I'm so dizzy I lose all sense of direction. Then the pounding in my head relents, and I'm on my feet, upright.

Duncan is in front of me, the Warden Commander, talking to me.

What he's doing here, I have no idea.

"Liam?" he asks suddenly, and I realize he's been speaking and I've missed his words.

I try to speak, but whatever words I try to form are lost, and I manage only a strangled grunt.

"Your wounds, boy," he says, repeating himself. "Are they serious?"

Stupidly, I look down at my injured arm, then back at Duncan. "I don't know," I say.

What I mean is, _What does it matter?_

The wound isn't deep, but a wide strip of skin has been peeled away, beginning just above my hand. Some of what was removed hangs in a flap near my elbow. The blood is beginning to congeal over exposed flesh, a thick, dark gelatin that still leaks around the edges. Until now, I'd barely noticed it, but with my attention drawn, I find it burns, the sensation so hot that it could almost be freezing.

Beside Duncan, another familiar voice speaks.

"Is the castle fallen?"

It's Ser Jory, armored, sword held up directly in front of him, his head moving back and forth a bit too quickly for simple vigilance. There is a sheen of sweat across his forehead, and he's trying hard not to look at the bodies.

"I... I think so," I manage, searching my mind for the answer. "We – we may still hold the front gate."

"And my aunt?"

"Dead," I say, no energy left for tact.

Jory barely reacts, his sword still held out before him, eyes still darting everywhere but the dead.

An elven man steps past him, his face calm, a fighting axe held casually in one hand.

It's Varren, the servant who helped us with the bog rats. His big eyes are fixed on me with concern, but he also seems to be evaluating me.

What's he doing here with Duncan?

I want to ask, but I just say, "Varren?"

"My lord remembers my name," he observes, and I'm not sure if he's genuinely touched or being sarcastic. "May I inspect your wound?"

He doesn't wait for permission. Stepping between Duncan and I, Varren hooks his axe onto his belt and trades it for one of a dozen small leather pouches.

Without hesitation, he lifts my arm and squeezes the contents of the pouch onto my arm. It's a salve, instantly calming the white-hot nerves. The fiery sensation fades, and an instant later, almost all the pain is gone from the elbow down. I catch a whiff of herbs and mint, and stare in surprise at Varren.

"You need a healer," he says, "but that'll help for now." He turns his attention to Duncan. "Warden, we need go."

I force myself to focus as I look around. Duncan, Ser Jory, and Varren are not alone. There are four guardsmen, all of them men who left the gate with Father, and several more elves. Some of the elves are armed with axes like Varren's, others with hunting bows. Elves are forbidden weapons within the city, but obviously now isn't the time for questions of legality.

Another elf, Cath, the kitchen servant who was present for Madra's rat hunt yesterday morning, is helping Mother limp ahead of us, toward the basement stairs.

"My husband?" Mother asks Duncan pleadingly, looking back over her shoulder.

"Gravely injured," Duncan tells her, "but alive. He awaits us atop the Alienage staircase. He asked me to find you."

"Why?" I ask, surprising myself. "Why are you here?"

"Arl Howe sent men to kill me and my fellow Wardens," Duncan says, "although not nearly enough of them. No doubt he intended to eliminate anyone who might bring word of his acts to the king. As soon as we realized the attack was widespread, we tried to reach you and the Teyrn, thinking to help you in the defense. Howe's men already controlled the outer walls, however, so we doubled back, thinking to escape the city. By chance, we encountered Varren and his companions, and they led us to the Alienage staircase."

"Howe sent a few men to guard the stairs," Varren says, falling into step with Mother and Cath. He loops Mother's arm around his shoulders, so that she's supported between the two of them. "They're dead, of course," he adds.

Before I can ask more questions, an explosion rocks the keep. Dishes fall from the walls, and I can hear debris raining down on the dirt and grass outside the kitchen.

Ser Jory rushes to a nearby window, peering out into the alley that faces the barracks.

"Howe's soldiers are in the courtyard," he calls, an edge of panic in his voice.

The gates have fallen, then. Or, given the explosion, perhaps they've been destroyed completely. I have little enough experience with mages, but after seeing what one could do in the hall, it hardly seems farfetched to think three together could melt iron, or undo stone.

"Ser Gilmore?" Duncan asks me.

"He was..." I choke on the words, and have to start again. "He was at the gates."

I know now with certainty Aeron is dead. He would not yield the gates while he still draws breath. Although my spirit is already broken beyond any imaginable repair, the knowledge that he, too, must now be gone breaks me further.

Numbly, I wonder if there is any outside limit to the pain one man can feel. You would think that at some point, the vessel would be full, and any extra grief would simply run down the sides, unneeded. But each fresh loss brings its own unique flavor, and although I try to push back at the overwhelming sorrow, there is too much for me to fight.

"We need to go," Varren insists again. "Now."

Duncan takes me by the elbow, calling out for Jory to follow, and escorts me toward the back of the Kitchen Proper. He tugs me along at the back of the group, my feet stumbling and dragging on the uneven floor despite my mind willing them to move as they ought. We pass the larger ovens and make for the entrance to the basement.

Here, at the top of the steps down, I find that the guardsmen have stopped and turned, facing back the way we've come. Three of the elves stand with them.

"We'll hold as long as we can, my lord," one of the guards tells me as I approach, his face implacable.

This man's unquestioning sacrifice, offered tonight by so many others as well, is beyond my comprehension. I grew up with or around many of the guards who now lie dead throughout the castle, secure in their protection, never imagining that one day they would be called on to throw away their lives on my behalf – certainly never imagining they would do so willingly, even blindly.

All my life, I've been taught to hold duty above all other virtues. Today, I have seen the grim cost of such devotion, as well as its purest incarnation, as life after life is sacrificed on duty's altar.

Mother blesses the men and the elves as she passes down the steps. "May the Maker light your way," she says, and her voice is choked with emotion.

"Go in the light, my lady."

The reply comes from one of the elves, a man I don't recognize. He is not among the household staff, and his hands are a patchwork of thin, white scars. A fisherman, I guess.

Why is an elven fisherman here? Why are there any elves here at all, in fact? Cath may have been on duty in the kitchen, but Varren came here intentionally, and led others with him.

What duty do the elves owe us, I wonder? What could motivate them to involve themselves, let alone to embrace certain death for _shemlen_ nobility? I allow these questions preoccupy me as I follow Duncan down through the basements and sub-basements, not because I expect to find an answer, but because it provides some distraction from the crippling specter of Iona's death.

The echo of her last words, the final press of her warm body in my arms, the grating sound of her last breath. These impressions will remain with me, branded onto the forefront of my memory, all my life. There is no purpose in dwelling on them now, and although it feels like a betrayal, I try to press them away, to focus on anything else.

But it's no use. The thought of her, the _absence_ of her _,_ overwhelms me, and in my mind's eye I see her die over and over again, see her head fall back and her shoulders go limp, see the weak pulse in her neck fade, see the rivulets of blood running across her smooth skin.

Tears cloud my vision again, sobs racking my body. There have been too many tears tonight, weakness on my part. I ought to feel shame, but I don't.

Strong hands push on my shoulders, guiding my forward, and shame rises in me. I should be strong for these men who risk their lives to save mine. I am a Cousland. A Cousland always does his duty.

Those words are good mantra. They have defined my life until now, guiding me to the right choices, sheltering me in difficult times.

But now the grief is too strong. Not just for Iona, but for Aeron, and for Oriana, and for all the other dead.

Weakness takes me, and the tears flow, and only the effort of the others keeps me moving forward, climbing down, winding my way deeper into the belly of the keep.

...

 **We stop at last in the armory above the servant's staircase,** the same room in which Aeron and I interrupted the card game with our bag of rats yesterday morning. A handful of guards await us, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with more armed elves, facing the door. Behind them, Alistair, the Duncan's younger companion, waits anxiously beside dark-skinned man I don't recognize.

Nan is here, surprising me. Dully, I realize I'm glad to see her. She's huddled with two of the kitchen servants, at soldiers' card table. Judging by their cuts and scrapes, and their haunted expressions, I guess that besides Cath, they represent the only survivors of the massacre in the Kitchen Proper.

Father rests against the far wall, near the sturdy door that leads out to the cliff face. His shirt has been torn away at the naval, exposing a thick layer of tightly-wrapped bandages that are already soaked through with blood. There are cuts on his chest, shoulders, and right arm, as well. His face is ashen, and strands of hair are plastered against his forehead, slick with sweat. Still, his eyes are bright and alert, and they fix on Mother as soon as we enter.

"Eleanor!" he calls, and I can hear the pain in his voice, alongside the relief. "Eleanor, thank the Maker!"

Supported by Cath, Mother makes her way to his side. Gingerly, she is lowered to the ground beside him and wraps her arms around his shoulders.

"Oh, Bryce!" Her voice is muffled as she presses her face into his shoulder. "What happened? You're bleeding!"

"So are you, my dear," he says. "But we've made it this far, by the Maker's grace."

Nan has risen from the table, and has Oren in her arms.

Although the boy is still unconscious, Nan is cooing in his ear, rocking him back and forth in her arms. Oriana and Nan never saw eye to eye, and so Nan was not permitted to take on the same central role in Oren's upbringing that she had played in mine and Fergus's, but she's loved the boy no less for the exclusion. Of everyone present, she's in the best shape by far to care for him, and her presence strikes me as the first shred of luck I've seen since I managed to overwhelm the assassins in my room.

"Liam," Father says, and I find he's staring at me searchingly. "Your friend?" he asks, and I know he means Iona.

I can't muster the strength to shake my head, let alone answer aloud.

Mother whispers something in his ear, and he closes his eyes tightly, surprising me. Does he share in my grief, somehow, for an elven girl he ordered me not to love?

"I'm sorry," he says, eyes still closed. "I'm so sorry, Liam."

Still I can't speak, but I move to his side, kneeling across from Mother.

"What happened?" I manage to ask.

"Howe's man," Father says with effort. "Randolph. Must've been in the castle all along... We found him in the kitchen, attacking the servants. He...he killed half the guards. We retreated into the basement, and I thought he'd follow, but he took half his men with him and went back up toward the hall...I thought...thought he'd find you..."

"He did." It's really all I need to say.

"Duncan found me here," Father says. "Duncan, and some...some of the elves..." For a moment, Father's eyes drift, and then refocus on Mother. "You were right about them," he says lazily. "About the elves, I mean..."

"Never mind all that," she says, almost chiding him. "We have to get you out of here, Bryce."

"I... I'd not survive the standing."

"We can carry you," I blurt. "We'll carry you!"

"Only... only if you don't mind leaving pieces of me behind, Pup."

"Bryce!" Mother exclaims, and I can hear fear in her voice. "This is no time for joking! Howe's men have taken the gates, and it won't be long until they find us. We _must_ go!"

"We _can_ carry you, my lord," Varren says solemnly, kneeling as well, directly in front of Father. "There were no attackers in the Alienage when we left, nor in the port, either. Even if there are now, no one knows the alleys and sewers better than we do. We can get you all to a boat, or failing that, hide you."

Again, Father looks to mother, seemingly ignoring Varren. "You were right," he repeats.

"My lady is loved by us all," Varren agrees, "but we have no small loyalty to you, as well, Lord Teyrn. We would try to save you, if we can, but we must hurry. The steps cannot be rushed down, not safely."

Turning, Varren beckons to one of his companions, an uncharacteristically stocky elf whose rough hands and muscular forearms might belong to a blacksmith or farrier. "Help me," Varren directs, and together they move to lift Father.

He waves them away.

"Bryce!" Mother exclaims. "Bryce, you heard them! Let them carry you!"

"No!" Father says with finality, and then repeats himself more quietly. "No."

"Bryce! The servant's exit is right there!" She's pleading now, panicked.

It's the same panic, the same overpowering denial I felt as I watched Iona breathe her last.

"We can flee together," Mother continues. "Oren needs us! We'll find you a healer, and-"

"No," he repeats again, his voice strong and soft at once, that one word silencing Mother.

She begins to sob, rocking forward, bumping the crown of her head against his chest.

"I'm told Howe's men already control the castle," he says, and leans forward with great effort to cradle Mother against him. "They will control the city soon, if they do not already. You are not many, and you are hurt, and you must carry Oren, and I... I will only slow you down."

Exhaling, he collapses back against the wall without letting go of Mother, and she rocks with him. She's beyond words, keening against his chest, and I can see her tears dropping on his tunic.

"Leave me here," he tells me. "Get your mother and your nephew out of the city."

"I'll stay with you," I reply.

I'm not sure I even meant to speak, but as the words leave my mouth, I know this is the right course. Everything I love is gone – dead or dying in the castle above me. Here, beside my Father, in the depths of the home I love, there seems no better time or place to die.

Others can carry Oren and Mother to safety. My story can end here, in Highever, where it began.

"And I, as well," Ser Jory says, surprising me. "My aunt's death must be avenged."

"No!" Father snaps, almost angrily, but a fit of coughing undermines his tone. "No," he says again, when he's recovered. "No, neither of you will stay."

"This is my place," I insist.

"Duncan?" Father says tiredly, turning toward the Warden.

"My lord?"

"Grant me this favor...if you will?"

"Name it."

"If my son will not listen to me, take him with you by force..."

"Of course."

"Ser Jory, as well."

"With respect, my lord, I could not permit Ser Jory to remain in any case."

Jory stiffens at this, but Duncan casts him a warning glance.

"He is pledged to the Wardens," Duncan explains, "and we cannot afford the loss of even one recruit."

"Duncan?" Father asks again. "Is there...is there nothing you can do to save my city?"

"Nothing, my lord," Duncan says. "Howe has already tried to kill me tonight and I have only Alistair with me, and the recruits you see before you. Flight is the only option."

"I understand," Father says. "Duncan, you are under no obligation to me. But...but I beg you, I beg you grant me one more favor? See my wife and my family to safety..."

"I will do my best, my lord," Duncan says. "You have my word. But, I fear there is something I must ask of your family, in return."

Father nods, once. "Anything."

"What has happened here is a tragedy," Duncan says, "and it shocks even my conscience, but it pales in comparison the evil that is now loosed upon the world. I came to your castle in search of a recruit, and the darkspawn threat demands that I leave with one, if I can."

Father's eyes flash with anger, but he doesn't speak.

"What are you talking about?" I demand, but I think I know. The mere suggestion ignites burning anger in my chest. Grey Warden or no, how dare he? But neither Father nor Duncan pay my question any mind.

"I must beg your forgiveness, my lord," Duncan continues. "Ordinarily, I would not dream of asking for such a thing under these circumstances, and I swear to you, regardless of your answer, I will commit myself to your family's safety. But my code is clear – I can only aid them as a man, not command the rest of my Order to intervene. If you grant my request, not only will it benefit my mission, it will grant me standing to command aid from other the Wardens. I could use the Order's resources to ensure their safety, and to demand justice against Howe."

For several seconds, Father stares at Duncan, eyes still hard.

Mother is looking up, and seems to be holding her breath.

Around us, Varren and the elves and guards shift nervously. Every second spent talking or deliberating is a second that Howe's men could be drawing nearer, or overtaking the Alienage, or both.

Then the fire leaves Father's eyes, and he nods.

"I understand," he says.

"Understand what?" I demand, although now I'm sure I know.

"You fought your way through Howe's soldiers." Duncan is addressing me now. "All that I told you, of the skills that you possess that would benefit my Order, remains true, and now I learn you are a warrior, besides. And unless I have misunderstood what's happened this morning, you have lost much of what ties you to your old life. I think the Maker's intention is clear."

"Fuck you, and your Maker!" I growl.

"Liam!" Mother hisses, her hand going to my shoulder.

"I will not force you," Duncan continues, calmly, "but if you are willing, my offer is still open. You could join the Wardens as a recruit. We will see your mother and your nephew to safety, or take them with me to Ostagar if I can find no better course. In either case, you will accompany me to Ostagar, where we will warn your brother, and I will give my account to the King. I know King Cailan, and I believe he will seek out justice for your family if he can, but I fear there are greater forces at work tonight than Arl Howe's ambition. As I told your father, if you become a Warden, I can use my Order to protect you and your family from whatever game is afoot, and invoke our old treaties to demand action against Arl Howe."

As the implication begins to sink in, my anger begins to fade, but I still cannot accept what Duncan is offering, nor forgive that he would make such a request at a time like this.

"Pup," Father says, and waits until I am looking at him before continuing. "So long as justice comes to Howe, I agree to Duncan's request, and ask you to do the same."

"But my place is here, with you!" I insist. "Or if not here, then with Mother and Oren..."

"I would not part you from them until they are safe," Duncan says.

"It doesn't matter! My duty is vengeance on Howe, not your war against monsters!"

Duncan is still unperturbed by my outbursts. "A fair concern," he says. "I can only tell you that I will not keep you from your revenge without cause. But I must be clear: a Grey Warden's duties take precedence even over personal vengeance, and I would hold you to your oath, if ever you had to choose between the two."

"Then there's nothing to discuss," I snap.

But Father reaches out and takes my hand in his.  
"Please," he says quietly. "Please, Liam. This is my last request of you."

"I thought...you wanted me to be Teyrn." I regret the words even as they pass my lips. How unworthy, to speak of titles in the wake of all we have lost.

"Oh, Pup," Father says, without a trace of reproach. "I want nothing more, but the world has a way of taking what we want and..." He trails off, his eyes losing focus again. "The world has a way of changing," he finishes at last.

I nod in acceptance, and let out breath I didn't realize I was holding in. A curious sort of peace - or perhaps resignation? - washes over me, cleansing most of my anger.

"You would have me join the Wardens, Father?"

"Howe has betrayed my friendship and our family..." Every word is labored now. "He... he fears I am blind to the threat of Orlais, and thinks himself a better ruler. Or perhaps... or, he thinks to use the chaos of the Blight to advance himself. Make him wrong, Pup. See... see justice done, if you can. But remember, our family... our family always does our duty first. The darkspawn _must_ be defeated."

"Bryce," Mother says, her voice strangled. "Are you sure?"

"I would not see my line die because of Howe's treachery," Father says. "But I would rather that, than see our people perish beneath darkspawn blades. Duncan can keep him alive, and help him save our people. If that is our legacy, then it... it would be a good one."

Tears fall down her cheeks again, but Mother nods silently to me.

Slowly, I nod in return, first to Mother, then to Father, and at last to Duncan. "I will do as you ask."

"In that case," Duncan says, "I hereby claim you for the Grey Wardens."

From the corner of my eyes, I see Alistair, Ser Jory, and the dark-skinned man are all watching attentively.

"You are charged to our service, Liam Cousland," Duncan continues, "and commanded to fight beside us."

"If that's done," Varren says edgily, "we need to go. _Now._ "

One of the guards clears his throat and catches Duncan's eye. I recognize him as the corporal Aeron and I caught playing cards. "If you've no need of us, Master Warden," he says, "we'd like to remain with the Teyrn."

"It'd be for the best," Varren says. "The fewer _shems_ we have to sneak through the alienage, the easier it'll be." Several of the elves nod in agreement.

"Settled, then," the corporal says stoically, and none of the other guards object. Moving quickly, they tip the table over and push it against the door that leads back up to the keep.

I rise, and reach down for Mother's hand.

She ignores me, and beckons to the big elf, the one who earlier prepared to lift Father.

"Teyrna?" he asks, bowing his head.

"Would you lend me your bow, young man?"

Without hesitation, he hands her the weapon, then unslings his quiver, and passes that to her as well.

"Thank you," she says, ever polite.

"Anything for you, my lady," he says, and I believe he means it.

Again, I extend a hand to help her up, thinking that now she has a weapon, she'll be ready to go. Instead, she looks me directly in the eye and shakes her head.

"Darling," she says, "go with Duncan, and watch after Oren. You have a better chance without me."

Father and I protest at the same time, but Mother cuts us off. "Hush, the both of you. I can barely walk," she says. "Nan?"

"My lady?" Nan answers.

"You'll care for Oren, won't you?"

"With my life, your ladyship."

"Thank you, Nan," Mother says, and her tone conveys the depth of her gratitude. "I know you will." Mother turns back to Father, and stares directly into his eyes. "I still have a bow, and I'll kill every bastard that comes through that door. I'll buy time for my son and my grandson, but I won't..." She chokes back a sob, then continues. "But I will _not_ leave you, Bryce. I _cannot_. My place is beside you, in life as in death."

Blinking back tears of his own, he nods slowly. "I... I'm so sorry it has come to this, my love."

"Nonsense," she says, swiping at her eyes. She draws in a breath, and smiles, bittersweet. "We've had a better life than most, and done all that we could. It's up to our children now."

She scoots her back against the wall, shoulder-to-shoulder with Father, and lays the elven bow across her knees. She looks up at me and smiles, a warm smile that's been with me as long as I can remember.

"I'm proud of you, Liam," she says. "Now go. And don't give up," she adds, more quietly, and I know she's talking about Iona, and Aeron, and also about her and Father.

"Warn your brother," Father adds. "Tell him we love him, and that we're sorry...and, and know that we love you, too, Pup..."

Beside him, Varren pulls open the heavy door out to the cliff face. He and several of the elves step out and cross the bridge to the stone outcropping at the top of the stairs. There, they turn back, waiting for us to follow.

"You will do us proud," Father tells me, "as you've always done."

Groaning, he leans forward, and with great effort flips the Cousland sword from his back onto his lap. Only able to use one hand, he fumbles with the a buckle on the leather straps that hold the scabbard in place on his body, until Mother reaches across and undoes it for him.

Grimacing in pain, Father holds the sword up to me.

"Take this with you."

As though in a dream, I reach out, my arm moving more slowly than it should through air that feels too thick. My fingers close around the scabbard, and then Father's hand drops back to his lap.

"This is not... this is not the end, Pup," he says. "Do not _let_ this be the end. Do not... don't let this night be the fall of House Cousland."

Voice thick with emotion, I give my word.

I slip the scabbard over my shoulder, letting the weight settle on my back before tightening the straps and securing the buckle.

Somewhere above us, there is a crash, followed by shouts and the clash of steel. Howe's men have found the guards and elves in the back of the kitchen.

"Not to rush things," says Warden Alistair, speaking for the first time, "but we _really_ need to be going."

Duncan helps Nan and the servants out the door and across the bridge, and Alistair follows. Varren and the other elves are already waiting outside.

I'm left alone with my parents, and the last of their guards.

Mother has not stopped smiling at me through her tears. "Go, my darling," she says. "Go and live."

I nod. Then, not trusting myself to give any further answer, I turn, knowing I will never see my parents again.

Her voice follows me. "Maker watch over you..."

...

 **Cold wind lashes my face as I cross the bridge.** To the west, fires burn in the city, and from the castle above, I still hear the sounds of battle. Below, in the Alienage and the port, all seems peaceful, although there can be no certainty.

Varren gestures to Duncan and I that we should lead the way, and then moves beside Nan, steadying her and Oren. We climb down slowly, a straggling column of refugees and elves and Wardens, relying on starlight to guide us.

Behind me, I hear ropes snap, and a series of rhythmic thumps. I realize the elves are cutting the bridge that leads from the stairs to the armory, to prevent any attackers from following us down. The wood of the bridge strains and creaks, and then gives way with a loud crack, and it falls away down the face of the cliff.

The last link to my life, falling into the dark.

Tears burn in my eyes again, but I blink them back, forcing the thought away, forcing myself to focus on the steps before me.

...

 _ **Go and live,**_ **Mother told me.**

 _Maker watch over you,_ she sad, but I have never had much faith in the Maker, and whatever I had has been lost tonight.

 _Survive_ , Aeron told me at the gates. _For your family. For your people. For Iona._

All those things are gone.

Why, then, should I live? Why survive?

 _The only victory is vengeance,_ Father told me at the gates.

Vengeance, I tell myself.

Howe will pay for Oriana, for Iona, for my parents.

I will honor my oath to Duncan, take my vows to the Wardens, do my duty against the darkspawn. But no matter what he says – no matter what the Wardens demand – my family, my love, my life – these things will be avenged.

Howe will pay for Iona's blood, and for Aeron's blood, for the blood of Highever.

Any other duty pales when compared to all that blood, crying out for justice.

So I'll survive, I decide, casting one final glance over my shoulder, to the flames rising above Castle Highever.

I'll go. And live. For vengeance.


	11. Death and Politics

…

 _Fate can seem a cruel master, and many men choose to blame it for their pain. But let me tell you a little secret, child: Fate is not cruel, nor does it care to be any man's master._

 _Cruelty is the domain of men alone, and few men are so cruel as those who seek selfish ends, even in the face of annihilation. I laugh at their foolishness, these men who ignore the Blight's evil, who abandon their vigilance and their precious honor, to pursue mortal goals._

 _Such men – so short-sighted, so blind – they will be the first to drown in the storm that is coming. And for my part, I welcome their drowning. The world is already overburdened by fools._

 _For young Liam, however, I fear there would be little solace in my predictions, even if he could hear them._

 _Though he is wise for his years, wisdom is cold comfort in the face of his loss, pain the like of which few men ever know. Indeed, fate has gifted him with pain enough for a life time. But pain is not fate's only gift to Liam Cousland._

 _No, he has been gifted with rage, as well. Rage enough within to temper into a blade of fine steel, a sword of vengeance with which to carve the bloody path laid out before him._

 _But let us leave him now, child, however briefly, to nurse his pain and his rage. We must look elsewhere._

 _Fate has many gifts to bestow, upon many people, and many paths that have been set in motion will soon be joined._

INTERLUDE

Death and Politics

 **After centuries empty and abandoned,** the fortress at Ostagar had found renewed purpose in the face of the darkspawn horde, and now teemed again with life. Soldiers by the thousands camped between crumbling fortifications, their tents filling the ruins and spilling into the valley below.

Along with the soldiers came all the trapping of an army: banners and war horns; ballista and catapults and attending crews of engineers; a contingent of battle mages from the Circle, watched over by their Templar handlers; Chantry priestesses offering reassurances and blessings and last rites; and all the rest of the hangers on, from message runners and dog handlers to merchants and prostitutes, none of them very good; and, of course, the nobility, in their fine tents and finer silks, foolishly awaiting the glory of war.

So many people, and yet Zevran thought he could scarcely imagine a lonelier place.

The stones were old here, old beyond imagining, laid one upon the other by slaves at the height of the Tevinter Imperium's long lost Golden Age. The Imperial Highway, stretching across continents to the faraway Tevinter capital in Minrathous, was built in the same era, and it reached its end at Ostagar, once the furthest terminus of the Imperium's power. In those days, Ostagar had been one of the most important holdings south of the Waking Sea, the last bastion of civilization before the Wilds began. It must have been breathtaking then, before its arches of gleaming white stone were dulled by time, before the turquoise tiles fell from its enormous domed roofs and shattered on the hard ground, before the names of magisters memorialized by marble statues were lost to time, before its highest tower was occupied by birds and rats. Yes, it would have been a sight to behold in those long-lost days.

But then came the First Blight, and the Imperium was brought to its knees. To consolidate what power remained after the First Blight was finally ended, Tevinter withdrew from its southern holdings, Ostagar among them. As the centuries passed, the fortress saw occasional use, occupied for a few months a year by enterprising Ferelden banns or opportunistic Chasind wilders, but no permanent claim was ever laid, and no effort was ever made to slow the decay of time's inexorable march.

So the emptiness soaked into the old fortress, until loneliness became part of its character. The stones and tiles were all grey now, betraying no hints of their former colors, and lichen had spread across most of the flat surfaces, its sickly green the only break from the dreary monotone. The bones of the fortress still stood, a testament to Imperial industry, but they rose from alpine forest like a wind-worn skeleton, as much a part of the landscape as the steep, bare hills, or the valley that cut between them, splitting the fortress in two.

Zevran himself was high above the valley, on a long stone bridge that linked the two sides. Although he was neither a human nor the least bit Ferelden, Zevran had taken great pains to appear as both. He wore nondescript leather armor beneath a thick wool coat, and carried pair of short swords, worn crossed at his back, that were serviceable but completely uninspired. With his hood pulled forward to disguise his features, his elven ears, and, above all, the dark, curved tattoos that framed each side of his face, he could pass all but the closest of inspections and appear to be one of the many scouts in the King's employ.

Hundreds of feet below, a solid stone bulwark connected each of the bridge's thick supporting columns, blockading the narrow pass through the valley's steep, natural walls. The Ferelden commanders had felled every tree within a thousand feet of the bridge, and used the wood to supplement the bulwark with palisades and firing platforms. They had dug trenches as well, and laid small forests of wooden spikes to funnel any attacker through narrow killing fields.

Though not a soldier himself, Zevran could not imagine a location more unassailable than the one the Ferelden army had created for itself. He was told they faced a host of darkspawn at least five times their number, but if he were among them, he would have felt confident – arrogant, even, assured of victory. Indeed, his sources had relayed that the Ferelden army had already held off two concerted attacks by sizeable forces of darkspawn while suffering virtually no casualties.

And yet every sentry he passed watched him go with haunted eyes and grim expressions, as though their position was untenable and their doom unavoidable. Not a good spirit for an army, no matter how strong their position.

It would be easy to blame their mood on the darkspawn threat, of course. He hadn't seen one of the beasts himself, but he'd heard they were at once fearsome and hideous, a twisted perversion of the natural order. Worse still, he was told, no matter how many fell in each assault, their numbers were always replenished within hours. All the same, Zevran didn't believe the darkspawn were the root of the soldiers' unease.

It was this place. It was empty, and desolate, and cold, and every noise echoed endlessly, as though the valley itself were a mausoleum.

He would not be sorry to leave, and in fact he hoped to do so very soon.

Once across the bridge, Zevran immediately stepped off of the worn dirt path that would have led him up a gentle slope, into the center of King Cailan's camp. Instead, he made a hard left, ducking between two fir trees and walking along the crest of a hill so steep it was almost a cliff, dropping away into the valley below.

Concealed now by the terrain and by thick, hardy underbrush, Zevran threw back the hood, revealing long hair, so blond it was almost silver, and handsome, haughty features. It was not the most cautious thing to do, but any guards who came upon him now would have to die, whether they recognized him as an outsider or not. His employer required the strictest discretion, as his employers always did.

After following the valley's edge for a bit less than a quarter mile, he reached a stone outcropping onto which a watchtower had been built when the fortress was still occupied. The tower's roof was only half-decayed, and the army had taken advantage of the partial shelter to store grain, oil, and other perishables within. Two ballistae had been set up on the far side of the tower, aimed down into the valley below, but neither their crews nor the tower guards were anywhere to be seen.

"Hello!" Zevran called out, the faintest of smirks playing at the corner of his lip.

He hoped to bother the humans. Yelling would fly in the face of their dour conviction and their cloak-and-dagger pretentions, which quite delighted Zevran. After all, just because he was good at his job didn't mean he had to take any part of it seriously, employers included.

"Hello!" he called again. "Anyone there?"

The woman stepped through a stone archway on the side of the watchtower. If she was his contact, her name was Cauthrien, although she would want to be called _Ser_ Cauthrien, in the Ferelden fashion.

Although her face was pulled tight into a scowl, Zevran thought immediately that she was pretty – or pretty at least by the questionable standards one had to apply in this strange country. More interesting than her features, however, was the way in which she carried herself, every inch a warrior. She wore plate armor and carried a broadsword on her back, but as she walked toward him, she was light on her feet, evincing none of the discomfort so often observed when the nobility decided to put aside their finery and dress for battle.

"Must you alert the entire valley, elf?" she asked, with more scorn than concern.

"My dear lady, I was only seeking to determine whether you had forgotten about me," Zevran said, bowing with a flourish. He was told his Antivan accent struck most Fereldens as exotic, perhaps even romantic, an impression he preferred to encourage. It tended to put people off their guard, women especially, and if it also endeared him to them, then so much the better.

Upon righting himself, he found that Cauthrien had been joined by a man perhaps twenty years her senior. His face was angular and weathered, lines beginning to crease deeply at the corners of dark, piercing eyes, and his black hair showed the first signs of grey. Despite his age, he remained an imposing figure, a portrait of stern Ferelden pragmatism. This impression was enhanced by his armor, which was ornate and polished to a sheen, yet clearly not merely ornamental: deep scores pockmarked the breastplate, which could otherwise have doubled as a mirror, and long scrapes crisscrossed the enormous pauldrons, testimony to blows barely survived.

Zevran had never met the man, but he recognized him immediately: Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir, Hero of the River Dane. He had wondered, occasionally, why the Fereldens so idolized the Teyrn, but now he thought he knew.

Not one to let such a compliment show on his face, Zevran glanced back and forth across the stark landscape with an exaggeratedly critical eye. "This meeting place you have chosen, it's so dreary," he continued, still addressing Cauthrien. "I was afraid I might become lonely."

 _Lonely like the stones_ , he thought, but kept it to himself.

"Your silver tongue impresses no one," she said, and she really did sound unimpressed.

"Oh, I know several _someones_ who would beg to differ," Zevran said, and winked. "At least, where my _tongue_ is concerned."

"More to the point," Loghain said, his voice deep and gravelly, "your tongue is not why your organization was hired. Dispense with the act, Crow, and tell us why you're here."

"Elf… Crow…" Zevran echoed, trying to sound hurt. "Don't any of you want to call me by my name?"

"You didn't tell us your name," Loghain replied, "and neither did your masters."

"Not to bicker over the finer points, but they are not my masters," Zevran said.

"I really don't care," Loghain replied evenly.

"Very well then." Zevran reached into the pockets of his cloak and withdrew a roll of parchments, sealed with cheap red wax and tied tight with rough twine. "Here are the documents you sought, my good Teyrn."

Zevran extended papers toward Loghain, but Cauthrien stepped between them, taking the papers herself.

"And the courier?" she asked.

"Easy enough to spot," Zevran said. "An Orlesian chevalier, as you said, dressed as a refugee. He was not particularly well disguised, and anyway, he was going the wrong direction for a fleeing peasant. He put up quite a fight once I cornered him."

"You faced a chevalier, alone?" Loghain asked skeptically.

"Indeed. Fighting is my chosen art. Well, fighting and love-making. Fighting, and love-making, and witty retorts."

Loghain grunted, nodding his head slightly, and there was an odd, grudging sort of respect in the gesture.

"Were you able to take him alive?" Cauthrien pressed.

"Dear lady! Did you not hear me say he was a chevalier? Even if we had been able to do so, it would have been fruitless. Breaking a chevalieris almost as difficult as breaking a Crow, and, I do not mean to brag, but we simply cannot be broken."

Cauthrien glared, clearly unimpressed. "Can we trust you did not read them, at least?" she asked, handing the papers, seal unbroken, back to Loghain.

"Are you _trying_ to insult me?" Zevran asked, arching both his thin eyebrows in feigned shock.

"She is not familiar with your organization," Loghain interrupted.

"Evidently," Zevran sniffed.

"And what of the other matter?" the Teyrn asked.

Although neither contract had come directly from Loghain, or from Cauthrien, for that matter, Zevran knew exactly what he was asking after.

"It is done, as we were instructed. With the help of your friend in the templar order, my associates were able to locate a suitable Apostate ten days past."

"Any templar who aided you is no friend of mine," Loghain corrected, contempt in his voice. "Such a man is an oath breaker. He may have been useful to my cause, indirectly, but if I ever learn who he is, he'll receive the just reward due any traitor."

The templar was one of Arl Howe's friends, not Teyrn Loghain's, Zevran decided. Odd bedfellows, the two of them. Or perhaps not so odd. Rigid, determined men of principle always needed at least one weasel in their inner circle, someone willing to dirty their hands a bit.

"Odd to take affront at oath breakers," Zevran said, "and yet enlist the aid of apostates, if you will permit me to say so."

"We will _not_ permit it," Cauthrien snapped, with such conviction that Zevran suspected she had been thinking the same thing. "I've no interest in an assassin's moralizing."

"And now you wound me again, dear lady," Zevran said, thinking that Cauthrien really was a singular woman. She had a certain spark about her, the fire of conviction, and he didn't doubt this fierce energy would accompany her to bed. A fool's fancy, of course. The limits of time and circumstance would prevent any attempt at seduction, but Zevran believed himself a dreamer, and knew himself a fool.

"It's no business of yours, Crow," Loghain said, "but there is nothing I would not do for my homeland."

"An admirable sentiment, then," Zevran replied agreeably. "Clearly, I misspoke earlier. Perhaps I should have said, your _connections_ within the Templar order. But, no matter. I met with this boy, Jowan, the apostate. He is a rather timid young man, but he has recently found it within himself to escape from the Circle Tower in Lake Calenhad. He has been provided with the references and letters my brothers received from your Arl Howe, and assured that the Templars will not interfere with his task."

"And he made it to Redcliffe safely?"

"Yes, yes. Have no fear, we have taken care of everything you desire."

"This is _not_ what I desire," Loghain growled. "None of this."

"Ahhh. Forgive me. It seems I cannot cease putting my foot in my mouth today. Perhaps you will allow me to explain my blundering? Assassination in Antiva is a tradition, you see. It is more efficient than an election, as we say. 'Death and politics go together like kissing and lovemaking.' It costs a great deal depending on how experienced the Crow is…and how difficult the target is to kill…but it is an accepted part of government, nothing to be ashamed of."

"Arl Eamon is _not_ to be killed, Crow. Surely Howe told your masters this?"

"Of course, of course," Zevran said, waving the concern away. These Fereldens really did insist on misinterpreting every word out of his mouth, didn't they? It was easy to see why some called them dog lords. "I only meant to illustrate the difference in our perspectives, yours and mine, not to comment on this particular contract. The apostate understands the parameters of his task, and the consequences should he stray too far."

"He had best." Loghain was staring at Zevran evenly. "He will not be the only one to suffer consequences if any harm comes to Eamon."

Zevran actually chuckled. He couldn't help himself. "I certainly would not wish to draw your wrath, Lord Teyrn. But surely you do not expect the Crows to be responsible for any unintended results, when it was our explicit instruction, from _your_ pet Arl, to seek out an apostate capable of blood magic?"

"Have a care with your tone, _elf_ ," Cauthrien said, and her hand drifted to her the hilt of her sword. "Remember to whom you speak!"

Oh, yes, she _would_ be fun in bed! Alas…

"I only meant that we can guarantee no results in this sort of – how best to put this? Ah, _delicate_ – situation."

"So noted," Loghain said. "Your masters can expect the rest of their payment once the apostate's work is done."

"Then we are finished here, yes?" Zevran asked.

"Actually, we may have further need of you, before this over," Loghain said. "I've already made arrangements to pay an additional retainer to your masters."

Zevran sighed. "Again, they are _not_ my masters."

Loghain ignored him. "Send your companions to Denerim. You will go to Redcliffe. I want you to check up on this apostate, the boy you found. I require confirmation of his success, or failure. If you believe the situation beyond his control, kill him. If he has failed, kill him. Come to think of it, if he is no longer needed –"

"Yes, yes," Zevran interrupted. "It goes without saying."

"Very well. Once you're satisfied, join your companions in Denerim and await further instruction. This nastiness should be over within a week, two at the most, but we may yet have need of your skills."

"It will be my pleasure, of course," Zevran said, and it wasn't entirely a lie. Denerim wasn't Antiva, but compared to the rest of Ferelden, it was _almost_ civilized. If nothing else, you could find decent spirits and pretty tavern wenches to woo, and, really, what else could one ask for?

"Once I return to the capital, one of my agents will send word," Loghain said. "I presume they'll be able to locate you in the usual places?"

"Of course. In fact, I think I will be on my way to one of the 'usual places' immediately. I could use some rest and relaxation after the events of the last few days, and Redcliffe is such a long journey." Zevran bowed again. This time, as he straightened, he winked at Cauthrien. "Unless I could interest you in any other services, dear lady?"

Beyond a brief glare, she did not dignify him with any response, which was as he'd expected. Seeing her brows knit together in anger while her cheeks flushed red in the cold air was prize enough.

Rather than wait to be dismissed, Zevran turned and began to walk back the way he had come, through the dark stands of trees, toward the bridge. As he did, he caught of a flash of light in the corner of his eye, armor glinting under the dim sun. It came from further up the slope, along the path that Loghain and Cauthrien would have taken from the king's camp.

Zevran raised his hood to cover his face, before shifting slightly to study the intruders. There were three of them, young knights mounted on horseback, bearing the king's colors. Shifting further, Zevran looked back toward Loghain, hoping to get a better read the situation.

Secrecy was absolutely paramount, implied in any contract entered into by the Crows, and if Loghain required it, Zevran would be honor bound to kill the knights, or die trying. Probably die trying. Skilled though he was, Zevran entertained no illusions about his own limitations, and taking on three armored, mounted knights in an open area would be all but suicide.

"Ser Elric!" Loghain called out, waving at the knights. "Are you searching for me?"

"My lord Teyrn," called back one of the knights, the one most gaudily ornamented with the king's colors. "King Cailan requests your presence in the camp. And Ser Cauthrien as well."

Loghain and Ser Cauthrien began to climb toward the night, and as they did, Loghain gestured fractionally with his hand, directing Zevran to continue on his way.

It was no small relief. Zevran did not particularly like himself – not when he really thought about it, at least – but he was not in possession of a death wish.

"Oh indeed?" Loghain called back to the knight. "Have the scouts returned, then?"

"They have," Elric replied, barely having to raise his voice as as Loghain and Cauthrien drew nearer to the riders.

Since Zevran was walking steadily away, and had to strain to hear the next words.

"The troops from Highever are arriving, as well," Elric continued. "Not a moment too soon. The scouts think there will be another incursion tonight…"

Whatever Loghain said in reply, Zevran did not hear, nor was it any of his concern. He would be gone, and happily so, long before night fell and the darkspawn again tested themselves against the fortifications. The creatures could have this place so far as he was concerned. It seemed a fitting home for them: cold, and empty, and forgotten.

Then again, he supposed the beasts would not be content if this ghostly fortress were their only prize, and he had no wish to meet them in Denerim, let alone to see their evil spread to his own homeland. So, as he walked he muttered a silent prayer, asking the Maker not only to speed him on his way, but also to bless the Ferelden troops who would soon fight again to defend this lonely fortress, in this bleakest of wildernesses.

…

 **From the small dock at the edge of Highever's port district,** Hahren Sarethia could see the smoke, still curling up from the castle's inner ward a full five days after the battle. Her watchers told her that buildings in the inner and outer wards still smoldered, as did sections of the western district, where the fighting between Arl Howe's troops and Highever's militia had been fiercest.

She was told that whispers swept around the city, claiming the fires still burnt because they'd set by magic. The constables and militia were all missing or dead, along with the Cousland family guard, but there were servants, and tradesmen, and dockworkers, and a dozen others who swore they'd seen mages in the midst of the battle. Whether the sorcerers fought for Highever or Amaranthine was the subject of much debate in the backs of taverns and under the cover of alleys.

Many of the humans, fickle as they were, echoed the official account put forth by Highever's new regent, Arl Rendon Howe. His version of events, posted on the chanter's boards and announced by the city's criers, held that the invaders had actually been a tribe of Chasind Wilders, and that the mages were Wilder apostates.

In this fanciful revision of the facts, Howe's troops from Amaranthine had arrived in the nick of time, barely able to save the city, yet tragically too late to save the Couslands, who perished heroically while fighting for their subjects.

It was clever, she supposed, preying as it did on fear of the strange southerling refugees, and catering to the city's adoration of the Cousland family.

Whether or not the humans actually believed this drivel, Sarethia had no idea. Shemlen were hard for her to read, despite having lived around them all her life. She could understand they would all have to pretend to believe Howe's tale, if they wanted to survive. They had much to lose. So much, in fact, that she suspected many of the humans would delude themselves, if they hadn't already, and accept lies as truth. Humans were good at that.

Not so the elves.

Oh, she and her people knew how to be obsequious. They knew to nod deferentially, to keep quiet when it was expected, to pay lip service to whatever falsehoods were being foisted upon them. But this was a survival mechanism, so deeply ingrained that even under the gentle rule of Teyrn and Teyrna Cousland, the appearance of subservience came second nature.

Of self-deception, however, they would not partake. Unlike the humans, the elves would carry the truth in their hearts, nurturing its flame. If necessary, if justice was not done in their lifetimes, they would pass it on to their children's children. So long as the Alienage still stood, Teyrn and Teyrna Cousland would be remembered.

So, too, would Arl Howe be remembered, and gods help him if he ever stumbled into the Alienage with too light a guard...

…

 **Arl Howe had wasted no time initiating reprisals.** They began the afternoon after the castle fell, and Sarethia was not surprised.

It could not have taken long for Howe and his agents to discover that Oren and Liam Cousland were not among the dead. Nor would it have been difficult to read the signs and determine they had escaped by the servants' exit. Use of the servant's exit alone was enough to cast suspicion on the Alienage, but the armed elves who died beside human guards defending the Teyrn and Teyrna would be seen as proof.

In keeping with Howe's cover story of an attack by Wilders, the guardsmen were afforded all respects, their bodies given over to families for last rites and burial or cremation. No such treatment for the fallen elves, however. No, they were made into examples. Their bodies were mutilated, ears and hands hacked off. Signs were tied around their necks, decreeing just punishment for elves found carrying arms. Then they were hung in the center of the Alienage, from the branches of the vhenadahl.

To sully the vhenadahl was a desecration, a deliberate provocation. So too was the slander of the dead. In other Alienages, perhaps such an act might have gone unanswered, but too many of Sarethia's friends and neighbors had forgotten what life was like under other rulers, or were too young to have known at all, and stones were thrown at the Amaranthine soldiers. The troops responded with crossbow bolts, killing six in the crowd and wounding scores more.

In the human districts, Howe's agents spread word the elves had aided the Wilders, not the guards. Angry mobs formed at the Alienage gates, crying out for blood, screaming accusations of treason. For several hours, until Howe's troops reluctantly cleared the rioters, Sarethia feared a pogrom.

Before sunset, Sarethia herself was arrested, taken and questioned for hours by a big shem with an Antivan accent. Within the confines of the interrogation, there were no pretenses about Chasind Wilders or bands of apostates. The Antivan demanded to know if she or any of her people helped Oren and Liam escape. Had they sheltered them? Guided them? Did they hide them still? What about the Grey Wardens? There were other questions, too, about the elves who had fought beside the guards, and the elves who had thrown the rocks, and about how much misery Sarethia was willing to see inflicted on her people, on her _knife ears_ , before she told the truth?

Despite the rage burning in her heart, she answered the questions respectfully, in an even tone. To her surprise, the Antivan never laid a hand on her. Throughout the questioning, Arl Howe wandered in and out, listening sometimes for only a moment, sometimes for several minutes, but never speaking to her or the Antivan, until the moments before her release.

"The attack by the Wilders was a tragedy," he'd said coolly, staring into her eyes, daring her to contradict him. "But we must move forward, you and I. And you, Hahren, must understand that I do not hold to all the same views as the previous Teyrn. You would do well to keep your people in check."

Sarethia bowed her head in submission. "May we remove our dead from the vhenadahl?" she asked quietly, without looking up.

"They will remain until they fall," he answered nonchalantly, as though he spoke of leaves, not bodies. "They aided the Chasind barbarians in murdering your Teyrn's family, did they not? I'm sure you had nothing to do with such treachery yourself, but certainly there are those in your Alienage who did. No, the bodies will remain, as a reminder of the consequences of treason, and any attempt to remove them will also be an act of treason. Am I understood?"

"My lord," she said, and she thanked her ancestors that she had known cruel masters before, because it was only the weight of past experience that allowed her to maintain her docile facade.

She was released then, unharmed, her lies undiscovered.

Only after night fell, and Varren assured her that the last of Howe's agents had left the Alienage, did she dare to venture back to visit the child. She had not been sure then if he would live or die. He was feverish, his wounds infected, his body weakened by the loss of blood. Poor, sweet Iona had done well, cauterizing the deep cuts, but it was a miracle Master Oren had not been killed immediately, and a miracle again that he had lived through the shock of the hot iron pressed into the gashes, and a miracle thrice over that he still clung to live during the fighting and the long descent to the Alienage.

In Sarethia's experience, the world did not offer many miracles, least of all to the innocent, and she had truly believed he would die before the next day broke. But the old human woman, the retired nanny who ran the kitchen and called the elves _rabbits,_ refused to be separated from the child, praying over him almost without ceasing. Across the Alienage, others prayed as well, those few that Sarethia both trusted and needed. Some prayed to the Maker, while others prayed to the old gods, and still others, she guessed, prayed to both.

Sarethia didn't know whether it was luck or divine providence, but Oren lived through the night, and the next one as well. He showed no sign of waking, but his fever cooled and his breathing became less ragged, and the old human woman finally allowed herself to sleep. With every hour the boy's strength returned, and, gradually, Sarethia's thoughts turned to arranging for Oren's escape.

…

 **When the Wardens fled to the Alienage the night of the attack,** Liam Cousland had at first refused to leave Oren in her care, demanding to remain until his nephew returned to health or passed away. Varren told him it would safer to hide a small boy than a grown man, and the leader of the Wardens had insisted that they could not wait, but neither argument had swayed Ser Liam.

Sarethia knew enough of the lad, however, to believe that even in his grief, he could be persuaded, and so she had sworn, first upon her ancestors, and then upon the vhenadahl, that she would protect Master Oren with her life.

When this wasn't enough to sway him, Varren whispered news of Iona's death, and although it broke Sarethia's heart, she reminded Ser Liam that she had known his lover since the girl was a newborn, and had loved her as she loved all the children of the Alienage. If Iona had given her life for Master Oren, then she as Hahren would do no less, and so she swore on Iona's sacrifice.

Ser Liam had embraced her then, as though she were known to him by more than a title, and had left Master Oren in her care. Hers and the old nanny's.

As soon as the Wardens had taken Ser Liam, Sarethia set about disguising the child's presence in the Alienage. She called upon her few friends among the shemlen merchants to spread rumors that a child had been carried out of the city along with the Wardens, and other rumors that the child and his uncle, Ser Liam, had been seen sailing away on a human fishing boat, and still other rumors still that the child had died in the escape, his body thrown into the fire or the sea to keep it from being captured. She put her most trusted watchers to work, keeping constant surveillance on the drunks and the weak-willed in the Alienage, those who might be persuaded or manipulated into betraying her to Howe. She set other watchers around the child's hiding place, and arranged for escape routes through the sewers if they should be found out. She even spread a story that her best healer, the one she tasked with watching over Master Oren, was killed in the attack, so that the humans would not find the healer's absence suspicious.

By the time the bodies were hung from the vhenadahl and the Antivan began his interrogation, all was in place, and Sarethia had only to wait, and hope that she was not discovered before the child recovered or passed.

…

 **Now, on the docks,** Sarethia knew she had done all she could. Master Oren would not die of his wounds, but she could no longer afford to wait for him to wake. Though she trusted her watchers, and believed her campaign of misinformation a success, no secret could be kept forever. Eventually, someone would slip up, or her luck would turn, and Howe's agents would discover Master Oren, and she and her people would pay the price. So the time had come to gamble, and gamble she did.

The dock she stood on was deserted, except for a few of the homeless. They fished the harbor's muddy waters for bottom feeders with makeshift poles, while drinking the cheapest liquor they could buy or brew. Many of them were elves, and over the years she had made it a habit to come down to these docks, and to the nearby alleys, to converse with the most broken of her people, to see if any could be coaxed back to the relative safety of the Alienage.

Today, however, as she passed out loaves of bread and whispered blessings to men and women with stale breath and open sores, her eyes were elsewhere, studying a fishing boat moored at a nearby pier. It was one of several owned by a human merchant she trusted, and it was crewed mostly by elves, Varren among them.

He was already aboard, and she could see him on the deck, untying ropes and checking nets. Nothing about Varren's movements or demeanor gave away his true focus, but Sarethia, used to his company as she was, could tell he was searching the piers, waiting for Cath and the others.

So was Sarethia, for that matter, and more than once she had to remind herself to breathe.

She had no reason to fear. She kept reminding herself of that, too.

The child, Master Oren, had been given a tea that would keep him asleep for several hours, in case his wounds had healed enough to allow him to wake. He was wrapped in blankets, and then in canvas, and finally in nets, and placed in the front of a wheelbarrow, beneath ropes and hooks and boxes of tar and still more nets, and as she watched, she could see the wheelbarrow being pushed along the pier, toward the dock.

There was no hiding the old woman, but Sarethia doubted Howe and his agents would be on the lookout for the Cousland's kitchen supervisor. So Nan walked beside the wheelbarrow, bent forward, walking with exaggerated stiffness, playing up her age. Cath walked beside her, holding her elbow. In the crowd around them, six of Sarethia's best watchers moved through the crowd as well, weapons concealed, eyes alert for any shems who appeared to interested, or any Amaranthine soldiers on patrol, or anything else out of place.

As the wheelbarrow rolled onto the dock, Sarethia found herself searching the piers as well, and the few streets visible beyond. There was nothing she could do if something went wrong, no reason even for her to be here, observing, but she could not look away, nor repress the dread that rose within. Life had taught her that plans always fell apart nearest fruition, when the most was at stake.

And yet, when she turned back to the boat, Cath and Nan were already onboard, and Varren and the other crewmembers were unloading the wheelbarrow, carrying its contents onto the deck. Varren made one last trip for the roll of nets and canvass that contained Master Oren, and then there was no one left on the dock.

Lines were cast off and the boat began to drift away, and on the deck, Varren turned to face her and waved, a wide smile on his face.

That was it, then. Howe had no navy, and the crews who regularly staffed the harbor patrol's skiffs were also members of the constabulary, all of them dead or missing since the attack. As the fishing boat's sails filled and its wake grew wider, Sarethia permitted herself a smile.

Just this once, she thought, there were gods in the heavens. If so, they had certainly smiled down on little Master Oren these past days. Their blessing was scant recompense, perhaps, for the tragedies of Howe's attack – but it was a blessing none the less.

…

 **At almost the same time that the fishing boat was rounding the edge of the harbor,** pushing for open water, the Antivan who had interrogated Hahren Sarethia days earlier sat on the back of a dappled, broad-shouldered Ferelden mare. His name was Taliesin, and from his saddle, he watched as the prisoners of Highever were marched across the courtyard's inner ward. Most of the castle's occupants – guards, servants, guests, and Chantry brothers and sisters – had died in the fighting or the fires. The deaths of the clergy had upset a number of the Amaranthine soldiers, which was to be expected. Taliesin had heard the murmurs from some of the troops, and suggested to the Arl that perhaps some of them might need to meet with unfortunate accidents, or perhaps be sent to the front lines at Ostagar, but the Arl had refused this counsel. No matter. It wasn't Taliesin's problem. As in any fight, there had been survivors: a few stable boys, a few guards whose wounds were not serious enough to merit a mercy killing, and a few of the Cousland's personal servants who fled to the higher levels of the keep. If it had been left to him, Taliesin would have ordered them all killed, but Arl Howe thought he saw an opportunity, and could not be dissuaded. Since the Arl was the client, and not inclined to listen to Taliesin's advice in any case, the job was to take these survivors to Arl Howe's estate in Denerim. Or rather, to the estate of the late Arl of Denerim, Uriel Vaughan, who had met with a tragic accident on the road from Denerim to Ostagar. Vaughan had a son, as well, but if all had gone to plan, the son was safely imprisoned in the dungeon of his former mansion, soon to be joined by the survivors of Highever Castle. Most who entered the dungeon, Taliesin guessed, would have been luckier to have perished in combat, or to have met with a tragic accident of their own. The hope was to break one or more of them, to be molded into willing pawns for Howe. With the chaos of the Blight unfolding in the South, it was unlikely anyone who mattered would ever challenge Arl Howe's story of a Chasind raid catching Highever unprepared. In the event that someone _did_ , however, it would be most helpful to have a survivor in Howe's pocket, willing to testify to whatever the Arl required. Taliesin himself knew a very little of the art of torture, enough for a crude interrogation, but also enough to respect the skills of a master torturer – and the torturer Arl Howe was rumored to have acquired was a master indeed. Someone would break. Probably a servant or two, he guessed, and almost certainly Arl Vaughan's son, for whatever that was worth. Nobles, especially the spoiled ones, required very little pressure before they snapped. Others, though – others would never break, and as Taliesin watched the prisoners cross the courtyard, he could pick out the ones who might as well be killed now. One in particular, a tall lad with flaming red hair, would prove quite the challenge for the torturer. He glared straight at Taliesin as he limped across the courtyard, shackled at the ankles, wrists, waist, and neck, restraints far more thorough than those applied to the other prisoners. His face was a tapestry of bruises, and the back of his shirt was shredded from lashings already received, but his green eyes were hard, unblinking, full of hate. Taliesin smiled pleasantly at the young man, and then turned away, nudging his horse toward the shattered gatehouse. He had nothing to prove in a staring contest, certainly not with an angry boy who was already as good as dead. Behind him, he could hear the prisoners being loaded into the wagons, and shortly after, one of the soldiers called out the order to move, and the wagons creaked forward. Still, you had to admire the young man's spirit. Beaten, wounded, surrounded by the wreckage of his former home, surely adrift in the knowledge he had failed utterly to protect his lords, and still the lad clung to pride, walking with his head up, already looking for another captor at whom to glare. _How utterly Ferelden_ , Taliesin thought. If for nothing else, you had to admire the Dog Lords for their spirit.

…

" **It's growing cold, Majesty."** Ser Elric Maraigne ducked into the king's tent in the camp at Ostagar, blowing into cupped hands as he did so. "Snow in a few weeks, I shouldn't wonder."

"Oh, we'll be gone long before then," the king replied, smiling broadly as he looked up from the big table in the tent's center. "I just hope Duncan arrives in time to get his share in the glory!"

The table was covered completely with battle maps, which were in turn anchored in place by pitchers and goblets, all filled with wine. Another, smaller table nearby bore platters of food, from which several of the king's honor guard were filling plates. Further back, near a partition set up around King Cailan's bed, a minstrel was strumming out some ballad or other on a double-necked lute, the kind Elric had heard were popular in Orlais these days. Behind the partition, Elric was sure Calian's latest plaything lounged in his bed, waiting until she was needed.

Or perhaps there were two playthings, Elric thought, given how cheerful Cailan seemed. He was practically beaming as he walked up and wrapped Elric in a hug, and judging by the royal breath, it wasn't drink that had the king in such a good mood. Not that Cailan ever needed an excuse for a good mood – they came naturally to him.

"What news from my father-in-law?" asked the king.

"He's seeing to the disposition of the troops from Highever," Elric replied. "He's moved them to the barricades in the valley, to relieve the men from Ostwick."

"Highever's here already?" Cailan asked, delighted. "Fergus Cousland is with them, I hope? I've not seen him in an age!"

"Yes, Majesty. Ser Fergus is with Loghain for now, surveying the lines. I conveyed an invitation to join us as soon as he's finished."

"Good man!" the king laughed, and clapped Elric on the shoulder. "Have some wine," he instructed, turning back to his maps. "You said it was cold out? You need to warm up!"

On cue, one of the honor guard stepped to Elric's elbow and handed him a goblet.

Although his tastes were not so refined as the King's, Elric had learned to appreciate the finer things in life since entering Cailan's circle – and as he took the first sip, he found the wine was fine indeed. Rich and slightly spicy on his tongue, warming his throat with the first swallow.

Elric had first met Cailan before he took the throne, in the months before the late King Maric's untimely disappearance, at a rather staid gala thrown in honor of some Chantry official or other. Although Elric was nearly a decade Cailan's senior, they'd been among the youngest people present, and had agreed to play a game of chess. Elric beat the prince quite handily, to his embarrassment, but the loss didn't seem to upset Cailan in the slightest. On the contrary, Cailan took it into his head that the two should become friends, and Elric knew better than to argue with royalty.

Why exactly Cailan chose Elric for friendship was something the older man had never quite puzzled out, but he'd learned quickly that Cailan rarely had articulable reasons. He acted more often on simple instinct, and although this was perhaps not the stateliest of traits, it had served the young monarch well thus far.

It helped, of course, that Cailan was quite simply a very likeable young man – and a very likeable king, besides. He was earnestly devoted to notions of heroism and bravery, enamored with history and tales of valor, and a capable warrior, and yet he was also gracious, quick with a laugh, and most appreciative of fine food, finer wine, and the finest women.

"Did you see those tavern girls with the Lothering caravan?" the King asked Elric, without looking away from the maps. "Bloody gorgeous. So, if you're still cold, they're in the next tent over. I'm sure they'd love to make your acquaintance!"

"They didn't return with the caravan?" Elric asked, somewhat alarmed. If the king kept too many lovers in camp, word would eventually reach Denerim. Although the queen herself was more than tolerant of his dalliances, it wouldn't do for tales of revelry to become widespread. There was enormous public support for Cailan's mobilization of the army, but if Cailan's political opponents saw an opportunity to paint Ostagar as a royal orgy and Anora as a cuckquean, they would certainly leap at the opportunity.

"The caravan didn't return at all!" Cailan laughed, such concerns clearly far from his mind. "We couldn't have my loyal subjects turning around for such a long journey without them resting a night."

"Not doing much resting, I hope," one of the honor guard remarked, provoking chuckles from the king and other guards. "Shame to let a good barmaid go to waste."

Under different circumstances, Elric might even have been interested, better judgment notwithstanding, but there was news Cailan needed to hear. Leaning forward, close to his king's ear, Elric muttered a few brief words.

Immediately, Cailan's expression soured. He straightened, and nodded to the minstrel, who immediately lowered his instrument and edged around the corner of the tent, toward the exit.

"Hold up a moment," Cailan called after him, and the minstrel froze, eyes wide.

The minstrel was clearly terrified. As Cailan walked toward him, the color drained completely from his face. Depending on whose courts he'd visited previously, it was possible he expected a beating, or worse, believing himself to have violated some unknown rule or noble whim.

"Good heavens, I don't bite," Cailan said, and reached out with both hands to grip the minstrel's free forearm. As this happened, Elric saw gold pass from the King's hands into the minstrel's, and the man's eyes widened, but with a different sort of shock. "Thank you for the lovely music, my friend," Cailan said, releasing the hand. "Would you be so good as to go next door and entertain the rest of my court, and those lovely tavern girls too?"

The minstrel bowed so low Elric was surprised he didn't topple over forwards, and didn't stop stammering his thanks until he was outside.

It was no wonder the people loved King Cailan.

"Have you been telling stories about me taking heads again?" Cailan asked as he returned to Elric's side.

"Only in the interest of deterring assassins and spies," Elric replied, smiling. "I am your guard captain, after all."

Cailan laughed. "Very well, you do what you must. What's this news, though?"

Pointedly, Elric looked back at the King's partition.

"Oh, she's passed out, don't worry," Cailan replied. "Took long enough, though. The girl could drink - Maker, could she drink!"

When Elric was still reluctant to speak, Cailan rolled his eyes.

"Very well," the king said, in a theatrical whisper. "We'll be quiet as mice. Now what's all this about?"

"Teyrn Loghain, Majesty," Elric said, speaking much more quietly than the king had. "I fear he's aware of your...correspondences."

"With who? With Celene?"

Suppressing a sigh at His Majesty's lack of discretion, Elric nodded. "After the scouts came back, when you sent me to find Loghain? He wasn't in camp. I was told he'd ridden out toward the bluff, where we set up the two ballistae. I found him there, with Ser Cauthrien, and an elf I didn't recognize."

"Oh?"

"The elf was male, dressed as one of our scouts, but it seemed to me he didn't want to be seen. He left along the edge of the valley, and guards on the bridge saw him leave camp shortly after. None of them recognized him, or got a look at his face."

Cailan laughed. " _That's_ what you're worried about? Probably just Old Loghain dipping his wick! Always wondered if he might be a bit queer!"

More chuckles from the other guards.

Despite himself, Elric was becoming impatient. "Majesty, this was no prostitute."  
"Oh, what do _you_ know of elven lotharios?"

"I – nothing, Majesty. But I was concerned enough by the elf's demeanor, I sent riders along the Highway."

"And?"

"They found no trace of him. However, they did find a man matching the description of the Empress' messenger. He'd been killed."

At last, a flicker of concern passed over the King's face. "The chevalier?"

"Yes, I think so. They said he looked like a soldier, but wore peasant's clothes. They say he'd been dead the better part of a day, and dragged off the road. His pack had been gone through, but no money taken. They could not find the message."

For several heartbeats, Cailan stared down at the maps, obviously considering. At last he sighed, shrugged. "Whoever he was, I pity the poor bastard, but it cannot have been Celene's messenger. A chevalier would not die without a fight."

"They said there were signs of-"

"Even so," Cailan interrupted, "if my father-in-law knew I was engaged in negotiations with Orlais, I'd have heard of it by now. Loghain's not exactly subtle, is he? He'd have knocked down my tent by now if he so much as thought I might be talking to Celene, let alone considering her offer."

"Perhaps," Elric said, "but I would urge you, Cailan-"

"Oh, _no_!" the King exclaimed, mock-horrified. "This _must_ be serious if you're calling me by name!"

"Majesty," Elric began again, through gritted teeth, "I urge you, do not underestimate the Teyrn. Even if you explained your intentions, he would see any alliance with Orlais as treason, to say nothing of this agreement, and I cannot guess how he would react. You are right, he has a reputation for being direct, but he is also-"

"Yes, yes, I know," Cailan said, waving Elric's concerns away. "He's a master strategist, not to be trifled with, etcetera, etcetera... I _do_ know the man, Elric, remember? He practically raised me. If there were a bee in his bonnet, I'd know by now."

Sometimes, Elric had learned, it was impossible to convince Cailan of the seriousness of a matter. This appeared to be such a time, so Elric nodded, abandoning the attempt for now. In fairness to the king, Cailan turned out to be right more often than not, and Elric turned out to be worrying for no reason at all. Perhaps this was such a time.

"Here," Cailan said, pointing down at the battle maps. "This is the real concern right now. Even if Loghain _does_ know, he also knows we have to squash these darkspawn vermin before we think of anything else. You said there'd been no sign of Duncan yet?"

Actually, Elric didn't think he had said anything of the sort. All the same, he had an answer. "Ser Fergus mentioned that Duncan and another Warden were at Highever, looking for recruits. They should be here in a day or two."

"Excellent! He's been too long away. Any sign of the Archdemon?"

Always the same questions. Where's Duncan? Where's the Archdemon?

"We've had no scouts back since this afternoon," Elric replied, "but the latest reports still say no."

"Hmm," Cailan said, still staring at the maps. "I'm beginning to think this isn't even a real Blight..."

 _Maker help us,_ Elric thought, _he actually sounds disappointed._

"Better an easy victory than costly glory," Elric said, hoping this wasn't pushing too far.

Apparently it wasn't, because Cailan straightened up and nodded, smiling. "You're right, of course. Now, tell me, if there _is_ another incursion tonight, how well are the boys from Highever situated on the front lines? They're new, you know... never faced darkspawn before. Maybe we'd better send some of the more seasoned troops down now, just in case? Pick a unit that's had a day or two of rest, and spread them out with the Highever boys. Unless Loghain has already…"

With that, the King was lost in tactics, pointing to the various rises and trenches and emplacements marked on his map, questioning Elric on the most minute of details. For all his eagerness for battle, and all his indiscretions, no one could accuse the King of being anything less than fully committed to this fight, nor to the men who would bear the brunt of its violence and misery.

And, really, the king was right. Even if Loghain knew of the negotiations with Empress Celene, the darkspawn were the immediate threat. Even Loghain would have to see that, wouldn't he?

Or would he?

The thought nagged Elric well into the night, until finally wine and fireside ballads and the company of one of those tavern girls eased his mind, and he allowed himself to dismiss the elf and the murdered refugee, and consider only the night's pleasures – the night's pleasures, and perhaps a few worries about the intricacies of the campaign that, in spite of Cailan's optimism, was not yet won.

…

 **As the king's captain tried without success to fight away his unease,** darkness fell over Ostagar. High above the king's tents, beneath the glow of the moon, a raven dropped from the sky on open wings before settling gently onto an outcropping of ancient stone.

An astute observer might have noted he raven watched the valley below with more than idle curiosity, her eyes tracking the movements of small parties of darkspawn. Other than this slightly unusual interest in the comings and goings below, and the fact that she was perhaps slightly larger than many of her kin, the raven gave no sign that it was different from any of her ordinary kin. And yet she _was_ different, for although she wore the skin of a raven, she was not, in fact, a raven.

'Twas curious indeed, she thought, as she continued her vigil. There would be no assault tonight, no pitched battle for the gateway to Ferelden. Skirmishes, nothing more. But _why?_

The darkspawn infested the forests south of Ostagar, their camps stretching for miles. Either they had numbers enough now to crush the human fortifications, or they never would. There was no reason to wait for further reinforcements from the Deep Roads – no reason to do anything but test their strength. Surely they knew this.

But if they did, then for what purpose did the beasts wait?

Now _that_ was a question worth asking, she knew. She had asked it of herself many times over the past days, as she circled high above the ruined fortress, searching for any clue. She had seen many things – the movement of soldiers from the north, the brief flurries of death among the trees, the games of politics played in secret - but she had not yet puzzled out the answer to this riddle.

And until she did, there was no purpose in abandoning her current form, nor returning to her mother.

Mother had plans in motion, and though the raven did not know the plans herself, she knew they hinged on the outcome of the battle that was to come. So the raven spread her wings and launched herself forward, into the night, to circle again, waiting for the future's puzzle to reveal itself.

…

…

…

 **CODEX: On the Ferelden Culture**

 _As we had begun to remark upon earlier, the Fereldens are a puzzle. As a people, they seem to us one bad day away from reverting to utter barbarism. Yet such a summation does them discredit, we have learned. They repelled invasions from the armies of Tevinter during the height of the Imperium, relying on naught but their dogs and their obstinate disposition._

 _They are a coarse, willful, dirty, and disorganized people, to be sure. Yet they somehow gave rise to our greatest prophet, for Andraste, may her name be praised, was herself a Ferelden, long before Ferelden itself united. Through her example, and by her lead, these people ushered in an era of enlightenment and toppled the Imperium, and, though we should not like to see it spoken of publicly, we would be remiss if we did not point out that in such acts, these rabble sowed the seeds of our own Empire._

 _My dear Gascon, there are few things you should assume when dealing with these people, and no assumption should be considered safe. First, they value loyalty above all things, beyond wealth, beyond power, beyond royal blood, beyond reason itself. Second, although they have nothing in their entire country which you are likely to find remarkable, having lived your life thus far within the shelter of the Empire's embrace, they are nonetheless extremely proud of their accomplishments. Third, if you insult their dogs, even without intent, they may well declare war, a result which we are not likely to regard with pleasure._

 _In summary, my dear, the surest sign that you have underestimated the Fereldens is that you come to believe you understand them. We wish you the best of luck in your new position, and are confident that we have made the right decision in your appointment._

Excerpted from a letter to the newly-appointed Orlesian ambassador to Denerim

by Empress Celene Valemont the First, 9:24 Dragon


	12. SECOND AUTHOR'S NOTE

AUTHOR'S NOTE #2

12/30/15: It will probably be a while before any further uploads. I started posting the first "Volume" of this project when it was almost complete, and the delay in posting subsequent chapters was largely to let me catch up on editing.

The last ten days or so have been spent, when I had free time, on the Interlude – Death and Politics – and going back and re-polishing the last three chapters, which I posted in appallingly bad editorial states. (Normally my wife edits a lot of what I write for work, but since this is written _for_ her, that's not the case.)

So, for anyone following this story, just a heads up: it may be upwards of a month or two before I start posting again. "Volume Two" should be much shorter than "Volume One," but it still takes time.

UPDATED 5/6/2016: Progress has been even slower than I expected. I got a promotion at work which has taken up most of my time. I still work on this as often as humanly possible; I just don't have much in the way of free time, between family obligations, work, and taking care of myself (stuff like showers, the gym, and cooking can only be ignored so long). So, it's coming, just slowly!

ALSO, In order to better track the ongoing progress, I've decided to publish each volume as a separate story. (This is also so I could use the Volume titles, which are probably better than my original, overarching "Dragon Age: Origins" when I planned to publish it all as one long story.)

For some reason I cannot get the link to post properly, but you should be able to find it easily under my works - I don't post anything other than this work!

Lastly, thanks for all the positive feedback! It's nice to hear, and helps keep me motivated!


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